Reflections on Cholera in Haiti
Last week, Haiti reached an important public health milestone: zero laboratory-confirmed cases of cholera in the past nine months. This achievement was possible because of the dedication of Haitian authorities, health workers, and their partners. But the epidemic never should have happened to begin with.
The Cholera Epidemic in Haiti began in late-2010 at a UN base, less than 1 km from where Dr. David Walton and I were helping build the new Mirebalais University Hospital. The base’s overflowing sewage tanks leaked into the river that ran through the center of the town, then spread through a tributary into Haiti’s largest and longest river.
Haiti had not seen cholera for over one hundred years. The chaos and trauma that quickly followed the initial outbreak quickly derailed our building efforts. David and I quickly shifted our efforts from supervising construction to supporting the medical relief efforts and building temporary emergency cholera treatment centers in Haiti’s Central Plateau. From the initial outbreak the epidemic spread quickly through the country that had little to no sanitation or clean water. It was an extremely difficult and stressful period for everyone in Haiti, but the rural poor bore the brunt of the impact from the disease.
Almost ten years later, according to the CDC, 655,000 Haitians have contracted cholera and 8,183 have died. To date, there has been no compensation to the victims, their families, or the public health system from the UN or the international community. This to me is an incredible injustice and immoral. Imagine the outcry if North Carolina or Michigan, with roughly the same 10-million-person populations as Haiti, faced a similar epidemic as a result of negligence?
People often ask me, “Why should we still donate to, or support work in, Haiti?” My answer is quite simple, and perhaps too basic, but it is this: if we believe in justice and try to live by a moral compass, we have an obligation to support and aid the Haitian people. It is that simple.
