Cholera Grips Haiti

[polly7]

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/03/31/world/americas/100000001463594/cholera-grips-haiti.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120401

Cholera Grips Haiti
A devastating cholera epidemic struck Haiti ten months after the earthquake of 2010. The New York Times traces the origins of the outbreak.

(I can't seem to embed the video, but it's worth watching for anyone interested.)

Global Failures on a Haitian Epidemic

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/americas/haitis-cholera-outraced-the-experts-and-tainted-the-un.html?_r=1



A child played and a woman washed clothes at the river tributary in Meille that is believed to be the source of the cholera epidemic.
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: March 31, 2012

MIREBALAIS, Haiti — Jean Salgadeau Pelette, handsome when medicated and groomed, often roamed this central Haitian town in a disheveled state, wild-eyed and naked. He was a familiar figure here, the lanky scion of a prominent family who suffered from a mental illness.
Multimedia

Cholera Grips Haiti

Damon Winter/The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/americas/haitis-cholera-outraced-the-experts-and-tainted-the-un.html?_r=1

On Oct. 16, 2010, Mr. Pelette, 38, woke at dawn in his solitary room behind a bric-a-brac shop off the town square. As was his habit, he loped down the hill to the Latem River for his bath, passing the beauty shop, the pharmacy and the funeral home where his body would soon be prepared for burial.

The river would have been busy that morning, with bathers, laundresses and schoolchildren brushing their teeth. Nobody thought of its flowing waters, downstream from a United Nations peacekeeping base, as toxic.

When Mr. Pelette was found lying by the bank a few hours later, he was so weak from a sudden, violent stomach illness that he had to be carried back to his room. It did not immediately occur to his relatives to rush him to the hospital.

[izquierdista]

1. UN still in denial

They may believe scientists about global warming, but when scientists identify them as the cause of a problem, they are not to be believed.

[polly7]

2. The way the UN handled this has been nothing but atrocious.

"While the world has dedicated $230 million so far to combating the unexpected epidemic, the United Nations is now pleading for an additional $53.9 million just to get the vulnerable displaced population through the rainy months ahead.

At the same time, Haitian cholera victims are seeking compensation from the United Nations, pressing it to accept responsibility. Early on, protests against the United Nations hindered the construction of treatment centers and the delivery of lifesaving supplies. Now distrust of some cholera programs lingers, and the issue has strained the peacekeepers’ relationship with the Haitians they are protecting in an eight-year-old mission to stabilize the politically volatile nation. So, too, have unrelated allegations that they engaged in criminally abusive behavior.

“In telling the truth, the U.N. could have gained the trust of the population and facilitated the fight against cholera,” said Dr. Renaud Piarroux, who led an early investigation into the outbreak. “But that was bungled.”

The United Nations maintains that an independent panel of experts determined the evidence implicating its troops to be inconclusive."