Haiti rejects Mexican food aid over swine flu fears

This has to qualify as the most dangerously stupid swine-flu overreaction yet: Haitian officials rejected a Mexican aid ship carrying 77 tons of much-needed food aid because of ”unfounded” swine flu fears, Mexico’s ambassador said Wednesday. The Mexican navy ship El Huasteco was to arrive May 2 in Port-au-Prince carrying rice, fertilizer and emergency food ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

This has to qualify as the most dangerously stupid swine-flu overreaction yet:

This has to qualify as the most dangerously stupid swine-flu overreaction yet:

Haitian officials rejected a Mexican aid ship carrying 77 tons of much-needed food aid because of ”unfounded” swine flu fears, Mexico’s ambassador said Wednesday.

The Mexican navy ship El Huasteco was to arrive May 2 in Port-au-Prince carrying rice, fertilizer and emergency food kits to help the impoverished country respond to chronic hunger and devastating tropical storms.

But Mexican Ambassador Zadalinda Gonzalez y Reynero said Haitian officials told her April 29 they would not accept the ship, which was still in Mexican waters near the Yucatan peninsula at the time.

”The crew was in perfect health and there was no risk at all,” Gonzalez y Reynero told The Associated Press, adding that the cargo and 64 sailors aboard the ship had all been screened in Mexico.

24 percent of children in Haiti suffer from chronic undernutrition. Glad the country has its priorities in order.

 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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