Cholera Update: Linking You

Indignation is appropriate. People bathe in this water, drink it, cook with it, wash with it and are now contracting cholera from it:

A tanker truck deposits excrement from the Nepali UN base
River contamination from Nepalese base (video)

Years of structural violence create the foundation for the spread of a disease like cholera. Poverty, poor infrastructure, privatized health care and education systems stemming from Structural Adjustment Policies in the '80's, and IDB loans for the development of a public water supply in the Artibonite that were blocked for political reasons during Aristide's presidency are a few examples of the economic, social and political factors at play:

PIH: Another Disease of Poverty in a Traumatized Land
WSJ on access to clean water

There's still lots of conflicting news circulating about whether or not the outbreak has reached Port-Au-Prince. Though there have been now been confirmed cases of patients contracting the disease in Port, officials continue to deny it. It would/will be a political nightmare and the government doesn't seem to want to jeopardize the upcoming elections. The UN and Ministry of Health have also made statements that it doesn't matter where the cholera originated and won't be investigating it further.