News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti NGOs
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: May 24, 2015
• Views : 219
• Category : Haiti News
• Description : Agence France-Presse on May 7, 2015 @ 7:20 PM
• Location : Haiti
• Website : http://www.globalpost.com/article/6541204/2015/05/07/un-struggles-stem-new-rise-haiti-cholera-cases

Overview

• A deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti that experts say was introduced by UN peacekeepers from Nepal is on the rise, with hundreds of new cases registered weekly, a UN official said Thursday.
  
  Pedro Medrano, the UN coordinator for Haiti's cholera outbreak, said years of work to beat back the disease are in jeopardy as donors turn away from the emergency.
  
  "Unfortunately because of lack of resources and of the rainy season, in the last six months we have moved from a thousand new cases a month to almost a thousand a week, " Medrano told AFP in an interview.
  
  The UN official predicts more than 50,000 new cases this year, up from 28,000 last year, the lowest level since the outbreak began in October 2010.
  
  More than 8,800 people have died from cholera and 736,000 Haitians have been infected since the outbreak that expert studies have shown was brought to the island by Nepalese troops.
  
  Studies traced the bacteria to the sewage system of a peacekeeping base run by the Nepalese that contaminated a river used by many Haitians for drinking water.
  
  Read more here >>