The senior United Nations Coordinator for the Cholera Response in Haiti, Pedro Medrano Rojas, says support for initiatives to combat the disease in the country have been “disappointing,”.
According to Carib Journal, Rojas said they are standing at a tipping point, and the European Union – the world’s largest single donor of development aid – could be a leading actor on this.
He noted that Haiti cannot wait two generations until reaching the same levels of coverage as the rest of the region.
The cholera outbreak, which began in 2010 following the earthquake, has killed more than eight thousand six hundred people in Haiti.
By most accounts, it was brought to the country by United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal. The United Nations has not taken responsibility, and has claimed immunity in a lawsuit seeking compensation for victims.
The UN and Haiti’s government launched a national sanitation campaign earlier this year to combat the disease, along with a three-year initiative on fighting cholera.
But support abroad is lagging, the UN official said.
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