As we navigated the garbage-strewn streets of Port-au-Prince and Cite Soleil once more, the situation looked hopeless. We wondered if cholera had already infiltrated the slums. It had, but we did not know this last Sunday. The report was official this week that cholera is in the city--a terrible scenario.
The Pan American Health Organization is braced for catastrophe.
PAHO Deputy Director Jon K. Andrus compared the Haiti epidemic that appeared on October 19 to the one registered in 1991 in Peru, and said everything points to a "crashing increase" of the contagion.
Andrus said that the Peru epidemic of 1991 spread to 16 countries and caused, just in Peru, over 650,000 cases in six years. With a proportional adjustment to the size of the population, a model of a similar contagion "could produce over 270,000 cases in Haiti."
Cholera, as of November 11,2010, has reached Port-au-Prince.
The first portion of U.S. reconstruction money for Haiti is finally its way more than seven months after it was promised. The U.S. government will transfer $120 million -- about one-tenth of the total of nearly $800 million pledged from an authorization bill blocked by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Will it do any good?
In FY 2010, USAID provided $1,147,815 to purchase and pre-position commodities in Haiti for the 2010 hurricane season. (Fact Sheet #4, Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 November 10, 2010)
This does not take into account the millions collected by private charities and NGOs that have not benefited the people of Haiti.
It is eleven months since the January earthquake, and the streets are still filled with garbage and rubble, the camps are filthy, and cholera will ultimately have its way.
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