UN apologizes for Haiti cholera spread in plan to eradicate disease

This article is about the cholera spread that took place after the 2010 Haiti earthquakes during the height of UN intervention. Until recently the United Nations have ignored assertions that Nepalese UN workers reintroduced the disease to the island after a 150 year absence. With only a month left in his term Ban ki Moon released a carefully worded apology that acknowledged the UN’s wrongdoings in the dilemma. Now the UN’s two pronged approach is their response for a half decade old problem. The first approach is more of a research and development approach with the intention to establish systems in place to respond to the disease, while the second prong is more policy based.

The article poses the question of : to what extent was the reintroduction of the disease an “accident”? After the earthquakes in 2010 Haiti served as the perfect place to conduct research on a captive human population. Although this is not suggested in the article, the situation raises red flags. The UN’s 6 year late apologize raises the question of why now? It makes the situation look quite scandalous considering they only apologized recently and that delay of acknowledgement would be enough time to conduct research on the disease to study eradication possibilities. What also raises a lot of alarm is the fact that the very people that introduced the disease are doing the research. There seems to be a lot of overlap that begs the question who “accidental” was the resurfacing of the disease?

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/health/haiti-cholera-un-apology/index.html

 

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