Peacekeepers and the plague (continued)

The BBC has a story up on the cholera outbreak in Haiti, and the link with U.N. peacekeepers. U.N. peacekeepers were the most likely source of the cholera epidemic sweeping Haiti, according to a leaked report by a French disease expert. Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux conducted research in Haiti on behalf of the French and Haitian ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The BBC has a story up on the cholera outbreak in Haiti, and the link with U.N. peacekeepers.

The BBC has a story up on the cholera outbreak in Haiti, and the link with U.N. peacekeepers.

U.N. peacekeepers were the most likely source of the cholera epidemic sweeping Haiti, according to a leaked report by a French disease expert.

Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux conducted research in Haiti on behalf of the French and Haitian governments.

Sources who have seen his report say it found strong evidence that the cholera outbreak was caused by contamination of a river by U.N. troops from Nepal.

The U.N. said it had neither accepted nor dismissed the findings.

I believe the U.N. butchered its response here and is going to pay a price. Instead of loftily pretending the link didn’t matter, it should have been all over the issue from the very beginning. Now, the organization will get blamed both for the cholera and for not being particularly interested in whether its peacekeepers caused it.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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