After Bringing Cholera To Haiti, U.N. Plans To Get Rid Of It.
Haiti hadn't seen cholera for at least a century. Then suddenly, the first cases appeared in the central highlands near a camp for United Nations peacekeeping forces.
Since then the disease has struck 1 out of every 16 Haitians — nearly 640,000 people. It has killed 8,000.
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Most scientists now think Nepalese soldiers unwittingly brought cholera to Haiti when they joined a U.N. peacekeeping force there in 2010. The outbreak started just downstream from their camp. Sewage from the camp spilled into a nearby river.
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For its part, the U.N. hasn't admitted anything. But in December, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a plan to rid Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic of cholera.
Concannon says that's ambitious — but feasible.
"Cholera can certainly be eliminated from Haiti," he tells Shots. "It's been eliminated from the United States, from England, from many countries in South America," he says. "This is basically 19th century technology that needs to be installed in Haiti."
The Haitian government is expected to release a detailed blueprint for the first two years of the effort sometime this month. The entire project is expected to cost $2.2 billion and take at least 10 years.
But so far, the U.N. has identified only 10 percent of the money, most of it redeployed from earlier pledges. Concannon worries the rest may never be found.
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