Cholera Treatment Center in Mirebalais, Haiti, from an earlier Nienaber article (source)
In this OpEdNews/LA Progressive article back in February, Georgianne Nienaber, whom I had accompanied for investigations into the cholera epidemic and sanitation system in Haiti, stated:
Cholera can exist in association with aquatic plants, microscopic animals, bivalves, water birds, and in sediment. These are some of the environmental reservoirs for cholera, where it can live over time or where humans can come into contact with it. Colonies of cholera flourish with weather conditions that cause algae blooms; and this is why you see peaks and valleys in the cycles of human infections. Cholera in Haiti is approaching its nadir, but is expected to peak once the rainy season begins.Also, consider that OCHA reported that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and OXFAM will stop chlorination of 11 wells in the Port-au-Prince area that provide safe water for 374,500 people. The plan is to hand these activities over to DINEPA (the Haitian government’s water and sanitation authority). DINEPA is planning to distribute 7.2 million chlorination tablets and has already done so to 302,700 households. Consider that a household is at least five people, do the math, and the supply won’t last long.
OCHA says the pumping of excrement from latrines in cholera treatment centers (CTCs) “remains a major problem nationwide and the situation is worsening in some areas.” When companies such as the privately owned firm, JEDCO, and the NGO Red Cross transport the waste, it is hauled to the Truttier waste disposal site, near the slum of Cite Soleil (out of sight out of mind), and inexplicably located on the Plaine Cul-de-Sac Aquifer.
The Haitian grassroots organization Ayiti Kale Je reports that Homero Silva of the Pan American Health Organization said “cholera bacteria can go down to the aquifer or out to the sea where it could survive for many years, creating an ongoing problem for Haiti.” (source)
Bottom-line, cholera bacteria, once embedded in an area, region, country, doesn’t go away very easily, if at all. Georgianne and others have predicted, and correctly, that once the rainy season seriously started up again in Haiti in the Spring, that the dormant strain that Nepalese UN troops inadvertently introduced into the Artibonite River and that soon spread like wildfire throughout much of the country, would erupt again into a new cholera epidemic. Already this is happening, and this needs to be addressed immediately by world bodies, NGOs and the new Haitian government of “Sweet” Micky Martelly. Serious efforts must be made to create real sanitation and water treatment systems for Haiti, and fast.
Thanks to this new and concise al Jazeera video report following, we have dramatic proof that the resurrected cholera epidemic is already rapidly spreading. TIME FOR THE WORLD TO ACT!