UN Report: No Specific Group Caused Cholera Outbreak
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – An independent panel set up by the United Nations to investigate the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti has found that a “confluence of circumstances,” and not the fault of any group or individual, was responsible for the fast-moving outbreak.
The report of the four-member panel of experts includes a series of recommendations for the UN and the Haitian Government so they can help prevent the future introduction and spread of cholera within the impoverished Caribbean country.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he plans to convene a task force to study the report’s findings “to ensure prompt and appropriate follow-up”. He had set up the panel in early January amid reports that Nepalese peacekeepers serving with the UN force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) may have been the source.
Nearly 300,000 Haitians have been sickened since the outbreak emerged last October and new infections continue to be reported. It has claimed more than 4,500 lives.
The experts’ report states that the evidence “overwhelmingly supports” the conclusion that the source was human activity contaminating a tributary of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of cholera.
Scientific analysis indicate that the bacteria did not originate from the native environment of Haiti, but from a strain “very similar but not identical” to South Asian strains currently circulating within Asia.
The outbreak was able to spread so quickly and widely through the Artibonite River delta and eventually all of Haiti because of a series of factors, including: tens of thousands of Haitians using the river system for washing, bathing, drinking and recreation; thousands of agriculture workers being regularly exposed to the river waters, especially those working in rice paddy fields; the local population lacking immunity to cholera; the country suffering from poor water and sanitation conditions; and infected individuals fleeing to their home communities after the initial outbreak, thus dispersing the outbreak.
“The introduction of this cholera strain as a result of environmental contamination with faeces could not have been the source of such an outbreak without simultaneous water and sanitation and health-care system deficiencies,” the report concludes.
“These deficiencies, coupled with conducive environmental and epidemiological conditions, allowed the spread of the Vibrio cholerae organism in the environment, from which a large number of people became infected. The Independent Panel concludes that the Haiti cholera outbreak was caused by the confluence of circumstances as described above, and was not the fault or, or deliberate action of, a group or individual.”
The report recommends that UN personnel and other emergency responders travelling from cholera-endemic areas should either receive a prophylactic dose of appropriate antibiotics before departure or be screened to confirm the absence of the relevant cholera strains.
UN peacekeeping missions operating in areas with cholera outbreaks should ensure that staff be immunized with oral vaccines, receive prophylactic antibiotics, or both, according to the report.
In addition, the report recommends that the Haitian Government and the UN prioritize investing in piped, treated drinking water supplies and better sanitation throughout the country.
