Port-au-Prince, Oct 3 (BNA): Haiti said on Sunday that at least seven people have died from cholera in a sudden resurgence of the disease.
The disease killed about 10,000 people during the 2010 outbreak that was blamed on a United Nations peacekeeping force. The Pan American Health Organization said in 2020 that Haiti had gone a year without confirmed cases of cholera, Reuters reported.
“According to the information we have, the number of deaths is between 7 and 8,” Director-General of Health Laurie Adrian said during a press conference, adding that officials were struggling to get information from hospitals.
“There was one death during the day today.”
The Ministry of Health earlier confirmed one case in the Port-au-Prince region and that there were suspected cases in the town of Cité Soleil outside the capital.
Cholera causes uncontrollable diarrhea.
The disease is usually spread through water contaminated with the faeces of a sick person, which means that clean drinking water is necessary to prevent its spread.
Troops from Nepal, where cholera is endemic, were in Haiti as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force established in 2004 after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The magnitude of the force was increased after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
The United Nations in 2016 apologized for the outbreak, without taking responsibility.
An independent panel appointed by then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a report in 2011 that did not definitively specify how cholera was introduced into Haiti.
In 2013 committee members independently published an article concluding that personnel associated with a UN peacekeeping mission were the “most likely source”.
MI