Transterrestrial Musings

1. 
   Godzilla

   January 11, 2013, 1:13 pm | #

   This seems rather unfortunate. It is common for epidemics like cholera to show up after a disaster which causes the cessation of clean tap water services but for the cholera to be carried by Nepalese UN troops which were supposedly there to help is a real disaster. I can understand the situation happening but those troops should be been quarantined and shipped back as soon as possible. In fact they should be inspecting people at the Haiti border. That is the real issue when viable government structures and border controls get lost.

   • 
     Karl Hallowell

     January 12, 2013, 12:05 am | #

     The article states that this is a myth. They mention a study which looked at roughly 600 disasters and found only three with cholera epidemics. Further, the epidemic in question started nine months after the earthquake. What is significant here is that Haiti didn’t have cholera prior to its introduction by the UN. If the UN force in question had undertaken some basic quarantine and public sanitation procedures, there wouldn’t have been a cholera epidemic even with the terrible situation in Haiti.
2. 
   Jay Manifold

   January 11, 2013, 6:04 pm | #

   Here’s a picture I took at Mission Baptiste d’Haïti a couple of years back.

   • 
     Godzilla

     January 11, 2013, 10:47 pm | #

     Is that some kind of local slang? It kind of looks like French but isn’t.

     • 
       Robin Goodfellow

       January 11, 2013, 11:43 pm | #

       It’s Haitian creole.

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