Deborah Sontag of The New York Times has published a major, 9-page report: Haiti’s Cholera Outraced the Experts and Tainted the U.N. This is the most detailed non-technical report I've seen, and Sontag has covered the ground very well. She has a quote from Flublogia's own Dr. John Carroll and a lot about the Pestel outbreak that he helped battle. Dr. Renaud Piarroux is here too, triumphing over a snotty editorial in The Lancet. And Sontag even notes that MSPP's "daily" cholera reports are always weeks late.
Here's the introduction. But you need to read the whole article and watch the 6-minute video. It's not the last word, but it's a start.
MIREBALAIS, Haiti — Jean Salgadeau Pelette, handsome when medicated and groomed, often roamed this central Haitian town in a disheveled state, wild-eyed and naked. He was a familiar figure here, the lanky scion of a prominent family who suffered from a mental illness.
On Oct. 16, 2010, Mr. Pelette, 38, woke at dawn in his solitary room behind a bric-a-brac shop off the town square. As was his habit, he loped down the hill to the Latem River for his bath, passing the beauty shop, the pharmacy and the funeral home where his body would soon be prepared for burial.
The river would have been busy that morning, with bathers, laundresses and schoolchildren brushing their teeth. Nobody thought of its flowing waters, downstream from a United Nations peacekeeping base, as toxic.
When Mr. Pelette was found lying by the bank a few hours later, he was so weak from a sudden, violent stomach illness that he had to be carried back to his room. It did not immediately occur to his relatives to rush him to the hospital.
“At that time, the word ‘cholera’ didn’t yet exist,” said one of his brothers, Malherbe Pelette. “We didn’t know he was in mortal danger. But by 4 that afternoon, my brother was dead. He was the first victim, or so they say.”
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