Via Al Jazeera Blogs: Unease over UN bid to eradicate Haiti cholera. Excerpt:
"We know the elimination of cholera is possible," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the initiative’s launch on Tuesday. "It has happened in difficult environments around the world. It can and will happen in Haiti."
Cholera was introduced to Haiti in October 2010 and has since killed about 7,750 and infected more than 600,000 people.
"With this new initiative, we will eradicate and remove once and for all the consequences and negatives effects of cholera on the Island of Hispaniola," said Lorenzo Hidalgo, the Minister of Health of the Dominican Republic.
But there are concerns by some diplomats and UN observers that the funds necessary for the programme would not be forthcoming from donors.
"The humanitarian funding is already running out," said Jake Johnston of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "What's to give anyone faith that these funds will come through?"
Haiti will need $500m over the next two years for its own national cholera plan. The funds allocated in the programme would therefore cover only one year.
UN diplomats told me that the launch of the initiative is meant to reinvigorate the humanitarian effort to tackle cholera, and send a strong signal to donors.
"I'm confident that more resources will come," Nigel Fisher, the deputy head of the UN mission in Haiti, told reporters on Tuesday.
"As we move forward with this, we will indeed see the elimination of cholera."
Additionally, some UN observers fear that the plan will deflect international pressure on the UN to take responsibility for introducing the deadly disease.
Numerous studies - including internal investigations by the UN itself - indicate that cholera was brought in by Nepalese peacekeeping troops. Yet the international body has yet to formally take the blame.
