Akademi

La MINUSTAH y la epidemia

tradui soti nan Panyòl
Sou twa semèn de sa, yo te nouvèl yo ak imaj pibliye nan pèp ayisyen voye wòch ak endiyasyon pwoteste fòs MINUSTAH, kote li akize yon sòlda Nepalese pou transmèt maladi kolera nan tout peyi a.

The first impression, without additional information, is that it was a rumor born of the antipathy that any occupying force induces.

How could they prove that? Many of us have never known the characteristics of cholera or the ways it is transmitted. A few days of protests in Haiti ceased and no one spoke about the matter.

The epidemic continued its inexorable course, and other problems, as the risks arising from the election campaign, occupied our time.

Today came the reliable and credible news of what had really happened. The Haitian people had more than enough reasons to express indignation with protest.

The AFP news agency reported this quote: "the renowned French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux conducted an investigation last month in Haiti and concluded that the epidemic was generated by an imported strain, and it came from the Nepalese base" of MINUSTAH.

Yet, another European Agency, the EFE, for its part reported that: "the origin of the disease lies in the small town of Mirebalais, in the Centre of the country, where the Nepalese soldiers settled their camp, and appeared a few days after their arrival, which proves to be the origin of the epidemic."

So far, the mission of the UN in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has denied that the epidemic went hand in hand with its blue helmets."

"...the French doctor Renaud Piarroux, considered one of the leading specialists of the world in the study of the cholera epidemic, leaves no doubt of the origin of the disease..."

"The study was commissioned by Paris at the request of the Haitian authorities, said a French diplomatic spokesman."

"...the emergence of malaria coincides with the arrival of the Nepalese soldiers who, moreover, come from a country where there is a cholera epidemic."

"Otherwise nothing can explain the sudden and strong spread of cholera in a small town of few hundred people."

"The report also analyzes how the evil spread, that fecal water of the Nepalese camp were drained to the river from which the inhabitants of the town take water."

More surprising was the response from the United Nations which was, we have sent "a fact-finding mission to the Nepalese camp, which concluded that this could not be the source of the epidemic."

Haiti, in the midst of the destruction of the earthquake, epidemic and poverty, cannot do without now an international force to cooperate with a nation ruined by foreign interventions and the exploitation of the transnationals. The UN must not only meet basic duty to fight for reconstruction and development of Haiti, but also with the mobilize the resources needed to eradicate an epidemic which threatens to spread to the neighboring Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, Latin America and other similar countries in Asia and Africa.

This is why the UN clung to its denial that MINUSTAH brought the epidemic to the people of Haiti? We do not blame Nepal, who was a British colony, whose men were used in their colonial wars in the past and now seek jobs as soldiers.

We have inquired with Cuban doctors who today provide services in Haiti and they confirmed to us the news published by the above-mentioned agencies of Europe with remarkable precision.

I do a brief summary of what reported us Yamila Zayas Naples, specialist in integral general medicine and Anesthesiology and Director of a medical institution of 8 basic specialties means Diagnostics of the Cuba-Venezuela project, opened in October 2009 in the urban area of Mirebalais, with 86 000 inhabitants, in the Northern Department.

On Saturday, October 15th, three patients with diarrhea-like symptoms and acute dehydration; Sunday the 16th, 4 entered with similar characteristics, but of the same family, and she took the decision to quarantine them and inform the mission what happened; Monday the 17th, surprisingly 28 patients were entered with similar symptoms.

The medical mission urgently sent a group of specialists in epidemiology who took blood samples, vomiting, feces and data, which were sent urgently to the national laboratories of Haiti.

On the 22nd of October they reported that the isolated strain was the same that is prevailing in Asia and Pacific, which is the most severe. Nepalese blue helmets of the United Nations unit is situated on the banks of the Artibonite River, which passes through the small town of Méyè, where the epidemic arose, and Mirebalais, where it quickly spread.

Despite the sudden manner in which the cholera appeared in the small but excellent hospital serving Haiti, of the first 2,822 patients treated initially in areas isolated from the same, only 13 people died, for a rate of fatality of 0.5%; subsequent to the creation in place separate cholera treatment of 3 Centre 459 patients, died 5 cases of very severe patients, to 0.1%.

The total number of sick from cholera in Haiti today Tuesday 7 December totalled 93,222 people, and the index of deceased patients reached the figure of 2,120. Between the care delivered by the Cuban Mission which amounts to 0.83%. The index of deaths in other institutions and hospitals is 3.2%. With the experience gained, appropriate measures and the strengthening of the Brigadier "Henry Reeve", the Cuban medical mission, with the support of the Haitian authorities, it has been proposed to have attend to the needs of 207 isolated sub-communities, so that no Haitian citizen is without assistance to the epidemic, and many thousands of lives can be preserved.

December 7, 2010

6:34 p.m.

Sous: Patria Grande