Cholera has been imported into Haiti by Nepalese peacekeepers

Written by Sandeep Nehra

Nepalese peacekeepers in Haiti have imported goods cholera strain responsible for the epidemic that killed more than 5,500 deaths in the country, says an epidemiological study published by the U.S. Centers for Control and Prevention (CDC).

This research, conducted by a group of French doctors, published in the journal “Emerging Infectious Diseases” dated July CDC.

She is the first outside of Haiti, to establish a clear link between the arrival of the battalion of the United Nations near the small town of Mirebalais and the epidemic that broke out in late 2010.

This link, which had been suspected, caused anti-UN riots bloody in the country, the poorest in the Americas.

“There was a perfect correlation in the time and place between the arrival of the battalion from a region of Nepal (Nepal) where there was a cholera epidemic and the emergence of the first case, Meille few days later “write the authors of this report.

“The isolation of Meili, in the central part of Haiti, and the absence of reports of the arrival of other foreigners in the region” makes it unlikely that the import of a strain of cholera “of a other way. ”

In addition, genetic analysis of the strain the hypothesis of its distant origin, highlights these doctors note that no outbreak of cholera had been reported in the country for over a century.

The infection spread quickly through the river Meille in which sewage and fecal matter from the camp of the Nepalese soldiers poured.

“We believe that the river was Meille the vector of cholera during the first days of the epidemic by carrying enough concentration of the bacteria to cause infection in someone who has been drinking this water,” the authors conclude that research.

Then, cholera has spread through the Artibonite River Meille which is a tributary.

“Our investigations, as well as statistical analysis showed that the contamination occurred simultaneously in seven municipalities located on the banks of the Artibonite,” the researchers said.

“We are aware of the report and as for others, we will study its findings soon,” responded a spokesman for the UN, Farhan Haq. “We watch all this very seriously,” he added.

“As you know, we are very concerned about the cholera epidemic in Haiti, which is why the Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon) had set up earlier this year a group of independent experts” to investigate the origin of the epidemic, he said.

The UN released a few weeks ago a study that blamed a strain in Southeast Asia while taking care not to accuse the peacekeepers’ camp in Nepal to be the source of the contamination.

In late November 2010, after leading a mission of several days on site at the request of the Haitian government, the French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux had assured that the outbreak had been imported, the strain that can come from either the environment or the camps for victims of the earthquake of January 12, 2010.

According to figures from the Department of Public Health in Haiti, 5,506 people died from the cholera outbreak in late 2010.