When on Wednesday 9 October, 2011, news broke that a US-based human rights group was seeking compensation for Haitians who died from, and have been sickened by cholera; I recalled the early days of that epidemic’s uncovering.
To this day, more than 6600 persons have been killed and in excess of 475 thousand sickened by the disease carried by water.
I went back to look at the entry made in my book: An Unassuming Love (Black Memory, A Travelogue And Cricket). It’s worth remembering.
Wow! What a trace!
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On December 7 both America’s National Public Radio and Associated Press were reporting that a cholera outbreak in Haiti was allegedly caused by a contingent of the United Nations so-called peace-keepers. The contingent was said to be from Nepal.
Haitians had identified that source long before respected French epidemiologist Professor Renaud Piarroux “concluded” that the cholera originated in a tributary of Haiti’s Artibonite River.
A UN base was next to the tributary just outside the town of Mirebalais.
Reports of cholera-like symptoms began to be suspected by October 19, 2010 after many people drank contaminated water in the Artebonite Delta.
Dr. Rinaud Piarroux, a head of department in Marseille’s Public Hospitals and one of France’s best cholera experts, was sent by the French government to help Haitian health officials identify the cause of the outbreak which by December 2010 had killed 2500 Haitians and made 100,000 sick.
“No other hypothesis could be found to explain a cholera outbreak in this village … not affected by the earthquake earlier this year and located dozens of kilometers from the coast and (tent) camps,” the epidemiologist observed.
The UN contended however, that Piarroux could not prove there was cholera “inside the base or among the soldiers.” Dr. Piarroux in true epidemiological language noted “it cannot be ruled out that steps have been taken to remove the suspected fecal matter and to erase the traces of an epidemic of cholera among the soldiers.”
Dr. Piarroux’s findings were described by the Nepalese as hypothetical. But, according to Piarroux a Professor at France’s University of the Mediterranean, the world had never seen cholera spread so fast since an outbreak in Goma in Eastern Congo.
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) was strangely cautious – given its tremendous medical resource in Haiti. In a December 9, 2010 article entitle The Origin Of The Haitian Cholera Strain, contributed by some sixteen practitioners comprising twelve PhDs and four MDs, NEJM stated in its conclusion that “the Haitian epidemic is probably the result of the introduction through human activity, of a v. cholerae strain from a distant geographic source.”
(The above is an extract from Steinberg Henry’s An Unassuming Love (Black Memry, A Traveloguer And Cricket, Chapter 32. www.steinbergh.com.
This memory gift is selling at 10, 20 and 30 USD for the e-book, soft and hard cover respectively).
