Monday, March 5, 2012

Haiti Cholera Source Revealed


In the article "Haiti: Cholera Epidemic’s First Victim Identified as River Bather Who Forsook Clean Water", the author writes about how the person who caused the cholera outbreak in Haiti has undoubtedly been identified. Researchers believe that a man known in the town of Mirebalais as the "crazy man" was the first to contract cholera. It is said that he had clean water to drink, but he would walk through the town of Mirebalais nude and bathe in the Latem River, which was just downstream from the Meye River, a place where raw sewage drained from a United Nations peacekeepers encampment from Nepal. The mentally handicapped man became ill with diarrhea and died within 24 hours. Two man became ill with cholera after washing the "crazy man's" body for his funeral, and they both died within 48 hours.
This article relates directly to the unit we learned about cholera. Researchers had to track the outbreak to one person, and they were able to track the London outbreak to the Lewis baby. Just like the London outbreak, researchers used resources and were able to discover the cause of the cholera outbreak in Haiti. I think it is interesting that researchers were able to track the outbreak back to this man based on his daily habits.

1 comment:

  1. I thought this article seemed very interesting. I thought this was interesting because it shows how bad cholera can be. I agree that this article relates to our unit because people have been searching to find the one person who spread Cholera every where and to everyone. I also agree that it is crazy that they found the one track to the out break of cholera. The article seemed interesting and i really enjoyed reading it and hearing the connection it had to our class.

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