PAHO Releases Update On Cholera In Haiti, Latin America
“The South Asian strain of cholera most likely introduced to Haiti by U.N. peacekeepers in 2010 has infected more than 700,000 people and spread to three other countries,” according to an update (.pdf) from the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) issued last week, Slate’s “The World” blog reports. In Haiti, “there have been 692,098 infections with 8,470 deaths,” “[m]ore than 30,000 people were infected by the disease in the neighboring Dominican Republic,” and “Cuba, which hadn’t seen a cholera outbreak in more than century, has reported nearly 700 cases,” the blog notes. “The latest country impacted is Mexico, which began noticing cholera cases in September” and has reported 184 with one death, the blog states. “The outbreak is believed to have began when Nepalese peacekeeping troops contaminated a river next to their base through a faulty filtration system,” the blog writes, adding, “The U.N. has not yet fully acknowledged responsibility for the outbreak, though a panel of independent investigators the body convened found ‘irrefutable molecular evidence’ that the cholera came from Nepal” (Keating, 12/9).
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