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UN Claims Moral Responsibility To Help Haiti Cholera Victims

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The United Nations made the first acknowledgment of its likely involvement in the cholera outbreak in Haiti six years ago, Reuters reports.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he believes the world organization has a “moral responsibility” to aid Haiti’s cholera victims and their families. Spokesman Farhan Haq announced Friday that the UN is working on “a package that would provide material assistance and support to those Haitians most directly affected by cholera” for the said victims.

A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011 noted that peacekeepers from Nepal, a country where cholera is endemic, introduced cholera to Haiti six years ago. An outbreak of the water-borne disease began, killing over 9,000 of the country’s residents and infecting 770,000 more.

Cholera had not been documented in Haiti in a hundred years before 2010. The infection causes severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and worse, death. It is generally caused by poor sanitation practices, which were prevalent in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. Haq said,

The Secretary-General deeply regrets the terrible suffering the people of Haiti have endured as a result of the cholera epidemic.

Ban had been pushing for $2.2 billion to fund a 10-year campaign to eliminate cholera that started in December 2012, in partnership with the presidents of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. However, less than a quarter of the amount has been raised.

Ban is now working on garnering a new response to be presented in two months, Haq said.

The United Nations does not directly or legally admit responsibility for the cholera outbreak. An independent panel commissioned by Ban in 2011 to examine the epidemic concluded that it could not determine how the cholera was introduced to Haiti.

On Thursday, a US Appeals court upheld the UN’s immunity on a damage claim filed by human rights lawyers on behalf of people killed or infected y cholera.

Haq told reporters that the UN has become more aware that “it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera.”

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