American Promise is Coming...
Winner at the
More than 100 documentary films
were screened at this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, including
37 feature films and 15 shorts in competition, that were selected from more than
1,200 total submissions. Films from 16 different countries were exhibited,
underlining the international profile of the Triangle's signature film event.
The festival's top prize - the
Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award for feature-length documentary - went
to the film "American
Promise," which follows two African-American boys
from kindergarten through high school at New York's prestigious Dalton
School.
Co-directors Michele Stephenson
and Joe Brewster, parents of one of the two boys featured in the film, shot
footage during the course of 13 years to complete the project. "The one
thing we want to promote is family," Brewster said. "And what we
felt when we came here [to the festival] is that this is a family."
Click
Here to see trailer of
American
Promise.
Click
Here for More Information on American Promise.
|
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
American Promise is Coming...
Food Security. US; FDA Recall: Big Blue Fisheries is recalling ALL smoked products
Recalls, Market Withdrawals and
Safety Alerts for U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
This information has recently been updated and is now available.
This information has recently been updated and is now available.
09/30/2013 09:33 PM EDT
Big Blue Fisheries is recalling ALL smoked products from
all lots and codes, various sizes, in vacuum packages because the products may
not have been properly cooked and have the potential to be contaminated with
Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium which can cause life-threatening illness or
death.
Consumers are warned not to use the product even if it does not look or
smell spoiled.
For detailed information pertaining to this Recalls,
Market Withdrawals and Safety Alerts message, please click the link at the
beginning of this bulletin.
International: UNISDR. Finland set to launch HFA Peer Review
http://www.unisdr.org/archive/34883
Finland set to launch HFA peer review
GENEVA, 1 October 2013 – Finland is set to follow in the footsteps of the UK this week and launch a peer review of its national implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), the global agreement on disaster risk reduction.
The 4th European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) heard that Finland is aiming for the same impact as the UK’s peer review – the world’s first – which served as a catalyst for high-level engagement and reflection.
As Finland prepared for its review, which gets underway on 5 October, EFDRR members called for a better understanding of advances in governance and accountability of disaster management. They agreed to consolidate Europe’s learning in this regard.
Similarly, as part of consultations ahead of the post-2015 international framework for disaster risk reduction, EFDRR members reiterated support of work towards reducing disaster risks at the local level. Germany, Norway, Poland, France and the European Commission/DG Climate Action and the Council of Europe have been in the lead on this process thus far.
The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Regional Office for Europe, Paola Albrito, said: “The EFDRR confirmed the firm commitment of our European actors and regional partners for a sound joint collaboration towards building resilience to disasters in the region.”
European countries have achieved significant progress in implementing the HFA. The recent establishment of national platforms for disaster risk reduction in Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Greece has brought the total number on the continent to 25.
There has also been movement in the establishment of legal and regulatory frameworks for DRR. More countries are moving from a culture of reactive disaster response and recovery to proactive risk reduction and safety. However, significant challenges remain in implementing the HFA, particularly in terms of the lack of adequate resources to support DRR measures.
The Forum agreed it needed to strengthen its influence on policymaking and practice as part of the global consultations to forge a post-2015 international framework at the World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan, in 2015.
Mr Dag Olav Hogvold, of the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning, highlighted two important principles for the Forum to continue to prosper.
“First, international cooperation benefits all of us; we don’t do it just for the sake of it. Second, we need to keep trying to work with nature rather than trying to beat it,” he said.
The European Forum was hosted by the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning and organised in collaboration with UNISDR and the Council of Europe.
The platform advocates for strong implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action and acts as a knowledge sharing platform for various European partners.
The 5th European Forum is due to be in Madrid, in September 2014 hosted by Spain’s National Office for Civil Protection.
- Date:
- 1 Oct 2013
- Sources:
- United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Europe (UNISDR EUR)
Sunday, September 29, 2013
2013 Slavery in our time. Families in Mali splintered by slavery
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/apr/03/families-mali-slavery-culture-conflict
Families in Mali splintered by slavery as culture and conflict converge
Tuareg rebels are capitalising on fighting in Mali to reacquire former captives whom they regard as their property from birth
• Mali's lax laws make an anti-slavery activism toughShare
• Mali's lax laws make an anti-slavery activism toughShare
- Celeste Hicks in Bamako
- theguardian.com,
"I haven't heard anything about my brother for more than a year," says Raichatou Walet Touka. She's been living at a safehouse in Bamako, Mali's capital, after fleeing the northern town of Gao following an attack by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a Tuareg rebel group that briefly took over northern Mali in early 2012.
Thousands were displaced by the fighting, and the subsequent battle for control of northern Mali between Islamist rebels and the MNLA. But the situation facing Raichatou has been particularly perilous, for she comes from a family considered by many in the MNLA leadership as slaves.
"I can't sleep at night," she says, wiping away tears. "I wake up feeling bad and thinking about my family who are still there."
In 2008, Raichatou escaped slavery in the northern desert town of Menaka, heading for the relative safety of Gao. But when the MNLA took control, she fled, fearing her old Tuareg slave masters might try to recapture her.
Anti-slavery groups say the conflict and ensuing political chaos in Mali has worsened the situation facing the 250,000 people who live in conditions of slavery in the west African state. The MNLA leadership and parts of the Ansar Dine Islamist group, which fought for control of the north last year, come from Tuareg noble families, some of whom are responsible for continuing the practice of slavery in Mali.
Malian anti-slavery organisation Temedt has reported cases of slave masters profiting from the chaos of the past year to recapture former slaves, including at least 18 children seized from one village last September. Raichatou believes this is the fate that may have befallen her brother, Ismagir Ag Touka.
Although slavery is a crime against humanity in Mali's constitution, it remains deeply ingrained in the culture. For centuries, descent-based slavery – where slavery is passed down through the bloodline – has resulted in "black Tamasheq" (the Tuareg's language) families in Mali's north being used as slaves by nomadic Tuareg communities. Generations of children have been considered the property of the Tuaregs from birth.
Despite the constitution, slavery is still not illegal in Mali, making it difficult for anti-slavery groups to launch criminal prosecutions.
Raichatou became a slave at the age of seven when her mother, also a slave, died. "My father could only watch on helplessly as my mother's master came to claim me and my brothers," she says. She worked as a servant for the family without pay for nearly 20 years, and was forced into a marriage with another slave whom she didn't know.
"My master only wanted me to have children so that he would have more slaves in the future. My opinion did not count. I had to live with a man I had not chosen for three years. They told me that the only way I would get to heaven was to obey my master."
In 2008, she heard about Temedt and made her bid for freedom; finally, she was reunited with her father.
"My instinct for liberty was telling me to grab every opportunity to be free, but my slave mentality was telling me the opposite" she says.
Now, Temedt's work helping liberate people has been severely restricted. Its activists cannot travel safely and security is volatile.
Efforts to bring civil compensation cases to court on behalf of escaped slaves have stalled with the collapse of Malian state institutions across the north. At least 17 slavery compensation cases that were going through the courts remain unresolved. There has been no progress on Raichatou's case. "I feel like everything we achieved has come to nothing. I have no hope," she says.
"The absence of the state has left people without recourse or protection," says Sarah Mathewson, Africa programme co-ordinator at Anti-Slavery International.
Funding for Temedt has been drying up, as donors pulled out of Mali following the coup in March 2012. A microcredit scheme for women of slave descent and a legal clinic offering advice to escapees have closed.
"Our work has ground to a halt," says Intamat Ag Inkadewane, a community organiser for Temedt, who also fled Gao. "I'm just sitting here in Bamako; I'm not working, I'm not getting paid. There are things I want to do in the north, but we have no way of knowing when we can get back there."
The recent French intervention in Mali does seem to be paying some security dividends with most of the Islamist fighters driven out of the main urban areas. But many slaves and ex-slaves say they still do not feel safe, since a new Tuareg group, the Islamic Movement for Azawad, is in control of the remote town of Kidal.
Temedt's president, Ibrahim Ag Idbaltanat, says he hopes its work can soon resume. Elections due in July could provide a rare window of opportunity, according to Mathewson: "People of slave descent should be consulted and represented in national and international efforts to address the crisis so this issue is not forgotten."
International: GABON. Wildlife Crimes. Illegal Poaching and arrests of Chinese Nationals
PRESS
RELEASE
For the five Chinese wood buyers
recently arrived in Gabon it must have seemed like an exotic treat when workers
of the EBS (Emirates Bois Sarl) logging company operating east of Makokou in NE
Gabon invited them to sit down for a meal of freshly butchered roasted elephant
trunk. But acting on a tip off from a Gabonese citizen who was shocked to see
this behavior, a team from Gabon’s National Parks Service arrived before they
could savour their meal. The five visitors and a
further nine resident Chinese workers are in custody and a criminal
investigation is underway.
Senior Conservator, Dr. Joseph
Okouyi, described how his team found fresh and smoked meat from several
elephants in the kitchen, as well as ivory trinkets and chop sticks carved by
the forestry workers in their spare time from ivory purchased from local
poachers. They also had a stash of giant pangolin scales, used in traditional Chinese
medicine, a pair of horns from the rare Bongo antelope, and a Winchester rifle.
National parks staff subsequently
arrested one of the hunters who had provided elephant meat and ivory to the Chinese
buyers, confiscating an illegal elephant gun and a large tusk. A fresh carcass
was subsequently discovered in the forest. The investigation is ongoing and Dr.
Okouyi expects to prosecute on Monday morning.
Professor Lee White CBE, head of
Gabon’s National Parks Agency was in New York to attend a special event at the
Clinton Global Initiative hosted by Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
and her daughter Chelsea when he received news of the arrest. “This incident is
not an isolated one” he stated. “Unfortunately these guests in our country have
abused our hospitality and rather than contributing to the sustainable
development of Gabon through their forestry operations they are driving the
destruction of our natural heritage”. Professor White went on to stress the
fact that elephant and rhino poaching are out of control across most of Africa
and that 75% of all forest elephants have been slaughtered in the last decade
by poachers who are more and more aggressive and who have developed links to
organized crime”.
Speaking at
the United Nations President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon stressed that: “The
magnitude of illicit gains from rhino horn, ivory and other wildlife products,
has made organized criminal networks more and more aggressive. Today, many of
our wildlife rangers are involved in combat situations similar to that seen by
Special Forces in armed conflicts. Illicit wildlife trade is destabilizing
entire countries, and is negatively impacting the growth of national
economies”. He stressed the need for “concerted action from the international
community as a whole to tackle this issue”, saying that “source, transit and
market countries all need to work together”, calling for the UN Secretary
General “to appoint a Special Envoy for Wildlife Crime, who should be charged
with spearheading a global response to this pressing issue”.
The Gabonese
Ambassador to the United States, Michael Moussa-Adamo, who was present at the
Clinton Global Initiative ceremony, stated that “for many years, our country
has taken seriously the responsibility to preserve and protect the natural
environment. Gabon's people recognize the
threats that put our flora and fauna in danger – whether it is the threat of
poaching or the threat of climate change, which alters the precarious balance
among plants, animals, and people. We
welcome this opportunity to cooperate with the Clinton Global Initiative on
this significant new effort to conserve the lives and habitat of the African
forest elephant.”
Contacts
Prof. Lee White CBE, Executive
Secretary, Gabonese National Parks Agency, Tel. +24107840063; Email: lwhite@parcsgabon.ga
Ref. photo library on
website
11 Chinese forestry workers arrested for ivory poaching in
Makokou, NE Gabon, 25 September 2013
Chinese forestry workers had been working ivory provided by
local poachers. Also in picture two horns from the rare Bongo antelope and an
elephant gun seized by national parks staff
Monday, September 23, 2013
750 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
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Get free online courses from the world’s leading universities. This collection includes over 750 free courses in the liberal arts and sciences. Download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player. Note: you can find a new collection of certificate-bearing courses here
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Cholera in Haiti By Deborah Sontag
Cholera
in Haiti By Deborah Sontag
Posted
by K T on
September 16th, 2013
·
·
11
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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
U.N. 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.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 U.N. peacekeeping troops from Nepal imported cholera to
Haiti.
“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, co-founder of
Partners in Health, a nongovernmental organization that provides health care
for the poor.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.
“In telling the
truth, the U.N. 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 United Nations
maintains that an independent panel of experts determined the evidence
implicating its troops to be inconclusive.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 U.N.
mission.Even so, Anthony Banbury, a U.N. 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 daily.
One calamity after
another
Here in the
epicenter of the epidemic, all signage relates to life in the time of 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.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. 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.
Enter the
epidemic A couple of hours after Pelette died from what the family priest
proclaimed to be a poison of some sort, Rosemond Laurime, 21, a “small-business
man” in his family’s description, got sick in nearby Meille. From Meille, the
epidemic coursed through the Artibonite River valley, landing with a thump 46
miles northwest, and downstream, in the coastal St. Marc area. On Oct. 19,
three children died in rapid succession in a classroom in the rice fields.
On Oct. 20, the St. Nicholas Hospital was overrun.Patients sprawled on
every surface, doubled and tripled up on beds, in the halls, in the courtyard
and even on the sidewalk outside. By nightfall, there were 404. Forty-four
died.“At that moment, I felt like I didn’t want to live any longer myself,”
said Dr. Yfto Mayette, the hospital director. “It was so sudden and so brutal.”
On Oct. 21, as
a brass band accompanied Pelette’s white coffin to the cemetery, the national
laboratory completed its analysis of the bacteria.At 11 that night, Dr. Jordan
W. Tappero of the CDC got a call in Atlanta from the laboratory’s director:
“Jordan,” he said, “It’s positive.”Louise C. Ivers, Haiti mission chief
for Partners in Health, had just arrived in Boston for a meeting. “My first
thought was, ‘You can’t be serious.’ Everyone was exhausted.”
InPort-au-Prince,
Jocelyne Pierre-Louis, a senior Haitian health official, had steeled herself.
“We were in a way waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said. “We had barely
picked ourselves up after the earthquake when the cholera fell on us.”Pierre-Louis
reported to the large tent that replaced her collapsed office after the
earthquake. Ivers took the next plane back, and Tappero flew in, too, with the
first of 119 CDC employees who would deploy toHaiti.There was much to do, from
treating patients to treating water, from importing personnel to training
Haitians, from distributing supplies to distributing basic disease and hygiene
information.But there were also fundamental decisions to be made, and nobody
was firmly in charge. International health officials deferred to the Haitians —
“our partners” — but in reality held the purse strings and know-how. This led
to an often awkward collaboration, colored by Haitians’ resentment that cholera
had been imported in the first place.Gaetan Drossart, mission chief for Doctors
Without Borders-Belgium, said the “health cluster,” a consortium of
humanitarian groups, had good intentions, “but there’s a lot of meetings and a
lot of blah blah blah.” He said other groups were limited by agreements with
donors to working in the earthquake zone and could not redeploy quickly.
Truth vs. ‘The
Blame Game’
Within a week
of the outbreak, officials in Mirebalais were pointing fingers at the U.N.
base, and U.N. officials were trying to stifle what they portrayed as rumors.
The struggle began between those who thought that determining the epidemic’s
origin was important and those who lamented “the blame game.”
At first, the
United Nations said the base’s handling of its waste met international
standards — that it used sealed septic tanks, which were regularly emptied by a
Haitian contractor, with the waste buried in a proper landfill.
But
on Oct. 27, Al-Jazeera filmed peacekeepers with shovels “working furiously
to contain what looks like a sewage spill.” Latrines appeared to be emptying
black liquid directly into the river, a reporter said, and the air smelled foul
with excrement.
Even four
months later, the United Nations’ own experts, examining the base’s supposedly
improved sanitation, discovered haphazard piping with “significant potential
for cross-contamination” between toilets and showers.
They also
noted the “potential for feces to enter and flow from the drainage canal
running through the camp directly” into the tributary. Contaminants would have
been distributed throughout the river delta in two or three days — a timeline
consistent with epidemiological evidence tracing the cholera trail, the experts
said.
Before long,
hundreds of Haitians were marching on the base, with demonstrations spreading
to Port-au-Prince and riots developing in Cap Haitien.
Edmond Mulet,
then head of the U.N. stabilization mission, complained that it was “really
unfair to accuse the U.N. for bringing cholera into Haiti.” U.N. officials
believed that agitators were taking advantage of the issue to sow unrest before
November elections. But many Haitians were genuinely incensed — and fearful.
Some wanted an explanation, others a scapegoat. Voodoo priests were being
lynched for their supposed role in bringing the curse of cholera on Haiti, the
government said.
In early
November, the CDC said that Haitian cholera samples matched strains commonly
found in South Asia.
Money and
lives
From the
start, financial concerns colored the response to the epidemic, which had
killed more than 3,600 Haitians by the first anniversary of the earthquake. It
was partly a question of getting money flowing. Some donors hesitated, given
the plodding pace of the earthquake reconstruction; others had to wait for a
new budgetary year. Some institutions had time-consuming grant or contracting
processes.
It was also a
question of philosophy.
Some health
officials wanted to use the least expensive prevention and treatment strategies
and to marshal resources for the long battle ahead.
Others wanted
to employ every available weapon at once, from free drinking water and
antibiotics to aggressive case-tracking, mass vaccination and water and sewer
system building.
If that meant
spending more upfront, so be it, they said. A year after the earthquake, many
organizations were sitting on donations that remained unspent. The American Red
Cross, for one, still had nearly half of the $479 million it had raised; it
would ultimately dedicate $18 million directly to cholera prevention and
treatment. Doctors Without Borders would spend $45 million.
Farmer of
Partners in Health, who calls himself “a maximalist,” said he wanted “health
equity” — for the developed world to respond to cholera in Haiti as it would at
home.
His
organization initially requested potable water be trucked into the Haitian
heartland so that a traumatized population would not have to filter and treat
its water. Purification tablets were delivered instead because it was
considered cheaper and simpler, he said.
There was
also a reluctance to use antibiotics, which can reduce diarrhea, spare
suffering and potentially limit the disease’s spread.
The Cubans
alone dispensed antibiotics to all cholera patients and preventively to their
relatives.
World health
authorities, concerned with cost and drug resistance, initially said
antibiotics should be reserved for severe cases. Nearly three months later, the
CDC recommended antibiotics for moderate cases, too.
Delay and
disbelief
In February
2011, nearly four months after the outbreak, the United Nations’ independent
experts arrived inHaiti.
The
secretary-general’s office wanted them to move quickly but not too quickly; it
did not want the findings released until the Nepalese contingent had concluded
its six-month rotation, Lantagne said.
The panel
said not only that the cholera had come fromSouth Asiabut that it originated in
the tributary behind the Nepalese base.
Yet the U.N.
experts noted that “the introduction of this cholera strain as a result of
environmental contamination with feces could not have been the source of such
an outbreak without simultaneous water and sanitation and health care system
deficiencies.”
And they
diplomatically concluded that the epidemic was “not the fault of, or deliberate
action of, a group or individual.”
After the
U.N. panel dispersed, Danish and American scientists collaborated to scrutinize
the Haiti-Nepal connection using the most comprehensive type of bacterial
genetic analysis — whole-genome sequence typing.
Dr. Rene S.
Hendriksen ofDenmarkpersuaded the Nepalese to provide samples from their
outbreak. Keim’s Translational Genomics Research Institute inArizonasequenced
the DNA, comparing it with Haitian samples already sequenced by the CDC.
The Haitian
and Nepalese strains were virtually identical.
Citing this
study and other evidence, a legal claim was submitted to the United Nations in
November on behalf of Haiti’s cholera victims.
The victims’
lawyers have asked the United Nations to establish a commission to hear the
claim. Banbury of the United Nations says the claim is “under serious review by
the legal affairs department.”
“The U.N.’s
choice is simple,” the lawyers wrote in a legal article. “It can rise to the
occasion and demonstrate that the rule of law protects the rights of poor
Haitians against one of the world’s most powerful institutions, or it can
shrink from the challenge and demonstrate that once again in Haiti, ‘might
makes right.”’
A breather,
and then disaster
It is
tempting now when reported cholera cases are at a low for Haitians to relax
their guard and for health officials to take a breather.
“We are no
longer 24/7 cholera,” Pierre-Louis said. The same thing happened last year.
Then the rains hit andPort-au-Prince, like other places, experienced more cases
— 24,000 — during a 42-day period than at the epidemic’s start. It was a
scramble to deal with the surge; many grants had expired, emergency workers had
gone home and treatment centers were closed.
“We had
supplies and structures prepositioned but it wasn’t simple,” said Drossart of
Doctors Without Borders. “We couldn’t keep mobilizing staff forHaiti. There are
other things going on in the world.”
Vertefeuille
of the CDC said a key focus now was making the response sustainable without a
large international presence. But the government health system, weak and
underfinanced, will be hard-pressed to assume greater responsibility.
Vertefeuille also said
cholera was likely to persist inHaitiabsent the development of water and
sanitation systems, the cost of which has been estimated at $800 million to
$1.1 billion.
A singular
achievement was the opening of Haiti’s first wastewater treatment site last
fall. But humanitarian groups fret that short-term water and sanitation
solutions are not being pursued aggressively, and that tent camps have lost the
free water and, in some cases, the latrine services that gave them a buffer
against cholera.
Many also
express keen frustration that the dry season is not being used for aggressive
case tracking — chasing the disease into pockets where it flares, investigating
and chlorinating the water source and mobilizing the community.
“You can’t
wait with your arms crossed until the rain falls again,” Piarroux said. “You
have to go after these areas like firemen trying to extinguish every last
burning ember of a forest fire.”
‘Would have
burned it down’
In Meille,
the walled gate at the U.N. base is freshly painted now with the insignia of
Uruguayan peacekeepers. The Nepalese are gone.
The mission
itself is reducing its forces nationwide.Nepal’s troop strength is being cut by
two-thirds, more than any other country’s. U.N. officials said that this was
unrelated to tensions over cholera.
But people
here think otherwise: “If they hadn’t left, we would have burned it down,”
Moise, the deputy mayor, said of the base.
Behind the
base, the stream where the epidemic began bustles with life now as it did before
the outbreak; many who live and work beside it have no other access to free
water.
Recently,
just behind the base’s barbed-wire periphery, Dieula Senechal scrubbed
exuberantly colored clothes while a 6-year-old girl, Magalie Louis, splashed
into the water to brush her teeth.
Approaching
with a machete on his way to hack some cane, her father, Legenord Louis, said
Magalie had contracted cholera late last year but after four days of “special
IVs” was restored to health. He knew the river water was probably not safe, he
said, but, while they brushed their teeth in it, they did not swallow.
For drinking
water, Louis said, his family relies on a local well. But he lives from hand to
mouth and cannot afford water purification tablets; the free supply he got in
2010 ran out long ago. So he gambles.
“If you make
it to the hospital,” he said, “you survive the cholera.”