Text Fwd: UN Soldiers Suspected in Haiti Cholera Outbreak 유엔 평화유지군, 아이티 콜레라 발생 원인으로 의혹삼

* Image & caption source: same as the Washington Post ink

The head of Nepal's mission in Haiti, Lt. Col. Krishna, second from left, and Prakash Neupane, deputy chief of the MINUSTAH engineering section, left, walks by pipes coming from latrines that lead to septic tanks that crosses a canal that leads to the Artibonite River at Nepal's U.N. base in Mirebalais, Haiti, Sunday Oct. 31, 2010. A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 300 people in Haiti matches strains commonly found in South Asia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday, intensifying the scrutiny of a U.N. base that is home to recently arrived Nepalese peacekeepers, built on a tributary to the Artibonite River. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) (Ramon Espinosa - AP)
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* Informed at Just Foreign Policy News Letter on Nov. 4, 2010

Washington Post
Experts: Did UN troops infect Haiti?
Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press
Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Researchers should determine whether United Nations peacekeepers were the source of a deadly outbreak of cholera in Haiti, two public health experts, including a U.N. official, said Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the strain of cholera that has killed at least 442 people the past three weeks matches strains found in South Asia. The CDC, World Health Organization and United Nations say it's not possible to pinpoint the source and investigating further would distract from efforts to fight the disease.

But leading experts on cholera and medicine consulted by The Associated Press challenged that position, saying it is both possible and necessary to track the source to prevent future deaths.

"That sounds like politics to me, not science," Dr. Paul Farmer, a U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti and a noted expert on poverty and medicine, said of the reluctance to delve further into what caused the outbreak. "Knowing where the point source is - or source, or sources - would seem to be a good enterprise in terms of public health."

The suspicion that a Nepalese U.N. peacekeeping base on a tributary to the infected Artibonite River could have been a source of the infection fueled a protest last week during which hundreds of Haitians denounced the peacekeepers.

John Mekalanos, a cholera expert and chairman of Harvard University's microbiology department, said it is important to know exactly where and how the disease emerged because it is a novel, virulent strain previously unknown in the Western Hemisphere - and public health officials need to know how it spreads.

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