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"In Haiti, cholera epidemic still a fatal fact of life; Disease infected 5% of population; 7,050 have died" by Deborah Sontag | New York Times April 01, 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.
On Oct. 16, 2010, 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 UN peacekeeping base, as toxic.
When 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.
“At that time, the word ‘cholera’ didn’t yet exist,’’ said one of his brothers, Malherbe Pelette. “We didn’t know he was in mortal danger. But by 4 that afternoon, my brother was dead. He was the first victim, or so they say.’’
In the 17 months since Pelette was buried in the trash-strewn graveyard here, cholera has killed more than 7,050 Haitians and sickened more than 531,000, or 5 percent of the population. Lightning fast and virulent, it spread from here through every Haitian state, erupting into the world’s largest cholera epidemic despite a huge international mobilization still dealing with the effects of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake.
Or maybe because of.
The world rallied to confront cholera, too, but the mission was muddled by the United Nations’ apparent role in igniting the epidemic and its unwillingness to acknowledge it. Epidemiologic and microbiologic evidence strongly suggests that UN peacekeeping troops from Nepal imported cholera to Haiti.
Related:
"The CDC, World Health Organization, and United Nations say it is not possible to pinpoint the source and investigating further would distract from efforts to fight the disease.... A spokesman for the World Health Organization said finding the cause of the outbreak is “not important right now.’’
Also see: Cholera Comes to Haiti
Haitians Hot Under the Cholera
Can you blame them?
“It was like throwing a lighted match into a gasoline-filled room,’’ said Dr. Paul S. Keim, a microbial geneticist whose laboratory determined that the Haitian and Nepalese cholera strains were virtually identical.
“In the future, historians will look back and say, ‘Wow, that’s unfortunate,’ ’’ said Dr. Paul Farmer, cofounder of Partners in Health, a Boston-based nongovernmental organization that provides health care for the poor.
I think it's criminal.
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.
Really, where the hell did all the aid money go?
“In telling the truth, the UN 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 UN lied? The UN lied?
The United Nations maintains that its own independent panel of experts determined the evidence implicating its troops to be inconclusive.
And then they covered up?
Questioned for this article, though, those same experts said that Keim’s work, conducted after their own, provides “irrefutable molecular evidence’’ that Haiti’s cholera came from Nepal, in the words of G.Balakrish Nair, an Indian microbiologist.
“When you take the circumstantial evidence in our report and all that has come out since, the story now I think is stronger: The most likely scenario is that the cholera began with someone at the MINUSTAH base,’’ said another expert, Daniele Lantagne, an American engineer, using the French acronym for the UN mission.
Even so, Anthony Banbury, a UN assistant secretary general, said last week, “We don’t think the cholera outbreak is attributable to any single factor.’’
And many health officials consider the cholera response “pretty remarkable,’’ as John Vertefeuille, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s director in Haiti, said.
A sky-high initial fatality rate of over 9 percent has declined to 1.3 percent (less than 1 percent is considered a well-managed epidemic). And the most recent statistics show new cases dropping to 120 per day.
Sigh. It's the world's worst cholera crisis and it has spread everywhere, but it's a great success.
Here in the epicenter of the epidemic, all signage relates to life with cholera. Surrounding the town square are heart-adorned posters that say, “Living with cholera: Always wash your hands with clean water and soap.’’
Banners slung across the streets, in contrast, bear skulls and crossbones: “Justice and reparations for all victims of the MINUSTAH cholera.’’
Inside City Hall, the deputy mayor, crisply dressed in a chambray shirt and slacks, described how he personally buried 27 bodies for fear that workers would not take precautions, how he nearly lost two of his own children to cholera, and how he seethed every time Nepalese troops entered his offices. “They were in my face every day, and the feeling inside me got stronger and stronger,’’ said Ocxama Moise, the deputy mayor.
Haiti had escaped the cholera that raged through Latin America in the 1990s, and even the cholera that struck the Caribbean in the 19th century. It appeared “extremely unlikely’’ that cholera would present itself, a CDC post-earthquake brief said.
Meaning someone introduced it.
But on Oct. 8, 2010, hundreds of Nepalese troops began arriving in Haiti after a cholera outbreak in their homeland, where cholera is endemic.
Cholera affects individuals differently; many infected develop no symptoms or only mild or moderate diarrhea.
Falling violently ill in October 2010, Pelette was not one of the lucky ones. Severe cholera causes profuse watery diarrhea, often accompanied by vomiting.
It's a horribly excruciating way to die.
Treatment is straightforward: replacing lost fluids and electrolytes, orally or intravenously. But those like Pelette who get no treatment can become so dehydrated that they go into shock and swiftly die.
Nobody knows for sure, but people here believe that Pelette was the first Haitian to die of cholera, and, though he was not named, he was presented as the “first case’’ in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in January.
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The globalists failed Haiti. I'm more of the belief that they view it as some sort of laboratory, otherwise the place still wouldn't be a wreck over two years later.
