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(CBS/AP) Cholera is on a deadly rampage on both sides of the Atlantic.
An outbreak in Haiti has already sickened 3,000 and claimed 250 lives. Authorities worry that the disease could strike the capital, Port-au-Prince, where 1.3 million earthquake survivors live, many in squalid refugee camps.
On Saturday, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook visited a hospital in the center of the outbreak. He called the scene "controlled chaos."
Cholera is also ravaging Nigeria. So far this year, more than 1,500 Nigerians have died from the disease. This is the worst outbreak of the waterborne disease in the West African nation since a 1991 outbreak killed 7,654, according to the World Health Organization.
Just what is cholera, and what makes it so deadly? And could the disease strike in the U.S.?
Cholera is caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholera. It's marked by severe diarrhea and vomiting, which can lead to dehydration and death within hours. The disease can be managed by rapid replenishment of lost fluids, either by drinking special water solutions or taking them intravenously.
The disease spreads when people eat or drink contaminated food or water, but clean water is often in short supply in places like Haiti and West Africa.
Experts say cholera is unlikely to strike in the U.S., thanks to our clean water and sanitation.
Read More...
Note that the worlds priorities are totally upside down. Everyone knew this was a potential disaster waiting to happen unless there was a dramatic, massive improvement in Haitians lives. Instead we get negligence, inertia, incompetence, corruption and disconnect from the powers that be. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars were forked over to bankrupt gambling casino bankers in record time around the world, while billions and billions are poured into wars continuously. A world this sick is going to collapse from the mendacity of evil.
Over population doesnt help when you have such conditions.
How is Coburn to blame when the aid is already in Hatti in warehouses around the
counttry?
Few know that Senator Coburn has been a successful obstacle to Haiti receiving the aid we sent. Now that his actions have resulted in the death of hundreds of people, how can Coburn live with himself with the suffering he is responsible for?
I will state emphatically, that Coburn is soley responsible for holding back US aid
I will remind, it was Clinton who secured Aristids exile to So Africa
I dont live in the USA, and many reports from Haiti have the people calling for the return of Aristid. Or rather reporting aired by foreign media outlets show the pleas for his return
Preval is absent………the President is presumably not a frequent visitor to the country where he is the head of government. Haiti has forever suffered for having been the first country to rebel and throw off the shackles of slavery.
The mods wouldnt print my last response but maybe these vireos will shed a bit of light on the ON-GOING problem with getting the $$ & aid there. They arent very recent but pretty much spell it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3kdjnICC-4
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/rebuilding-haiti-10255101
Does this mean they need even more support from us?
Check it out man. The resources and climate arent the same, nor is the history of both countries. Haiti was badly exploited by the French colonists, and then everybody else.
Without Western and white exploitation, it could have been the jewel of the Caribbean.
“Hey! All you fact-check gurus!
http://solutionshaiti.blogspot.com/2010/10/115-billion-us-aid-package-for-haiti.html
This is a follow-the-money puzzle… Can anyone verify whether this is fact or fiction? Haitian lives hang in the balance…â€
Nothing was any better with Aristide.
I think the Hollywood folks are not the ones not following through on aid. Our government pledged 100 million, though, and hasnt yet sent a dime.
More dead lining the streets. What horrors they live with.
This is genocide.
This is the REAL SHAME:
The AP conducted its own investigation of why the Senate has failed to pass the authorization bill, and it discovered that a single senator “pulled it for further study.†After calling dozens of senators’ offices, the AP discovered that the senator holding up the bill is Tom Coburn (R-OK). Coburn spokeswoman Becky Berhardt explained that the reason he is holding up the bill is because he objects to the creation of a senior Haiti coordinator — a position that would cost a paltry $5 million over five years — when the United States currently has an ambassador to the country:
Now the authorization bill that would direct how the aid is delivered remains sidelined by a senator who anonymously pulled it for further study. Through calls to dozens of senators’ offices, the AP learned it was Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma. “He is holding the bill because it includes an unnecessary senior Haiti coordinator when we already have one†in U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten, Coburn spokeswoman Becky Bernhardt said.
The bill proposes a new coordinator in Washington who would not oversee U.S. aid but would work with the USAID administrator in Washington to develop a rebuilding strategy. The position would cost $1 million a year for five years, including salaries and expenses for a staff of up to seven people.
Agreed, … People have not seen this sort of wave of Cholera in recent times. It is a deadly disease, and largely preventable with affordable filtration systems to sterilize the water available locally.
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter.html
it is an irony that Coburn is a physician, … and would let such petty concerns stand in the way of the health concerns that are now emerging. Winter is coming, the tents are rotting from rain and sun, … and the water is putrid and infecting the refugees.
We and the world have utterly failed in Haiti and in the flooded areas of Pakistan.
The aid is a phantom. Senator Coburn has placed a hold on the distribution of the aid until some pet peeve of his is resolved. Immediately following the quake the aid stayed at the airport rather than being given to the people on the pretense that violence prevented access. Yes!! We need a wikileaks reveal.
and others will say its all Obamas fault.. .he gets blamed for everything that happens in this gawd-forsaken world.
We should expose Senator Coburn for the roach that he is. The world should know that the money we sent to Haiti never arrived.
Haiti has been deforested. Dominican Republic has not.
page not found.
Oh my god they need help NOW! Cholera is a horrific way to di.e!
This was totally avoidable, if some sensible international cleanup and restoration efforts were made after the Haitian earthquake, such as:
RudyHaugeneder
17 January 2010 8:53PM
“Mr. Obama, with hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the USA, your government would be a true world leader if it recruited and funded a large team of skilled people from that population to return home to help rebuild Haiti.
“These individuals have a cultural understanding of their nation that nobody else has, and would provide fellow Haitians the pride and inspiration to turn that devastated country into a glowing example of what can be done when a people get together.
“Otherwise, the Haitian repair effort will become a failed example of outsiders imposing their will without honoring or understanding much, if anything, about those who need the help.
“Please Mr. Obama, assemble this special team of Haitians as quickly as possible.”
It didnt happen. It could have — but didnt. And now Haiti is in the early stages of a cholera pandemic that will probably take the Dominican Republic with it. What an absolute shame.
http://open.salon.com/blog/kemstone/2010/10/02/tom_coburn_wont_let_us_help_haitians
I feel so bad for these folks but dont understand how the years and years of aid before the earthquake and now almost a year after the quake and all the aid and attention that inspired, how can all this squalor still exist? How can there have been no change? How could things have actually gotten so much worse?
My sense of paranoia makes me wonder if we need a wikileaks type of reveal for whats really going on here.
Sean Penn and his crew are still there working; however, Senator Coburn has put a hold on the billions that were approved by Congress, so the Haitians havent gotten our money.
The delay is 100% the doings of Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who has placed a now not-so-secret hold on this funding.
Oh this is going to be bad. Given the still severe lack of sanitation this is bound to be a horrific wave of death to these people who seem to know only suffering.
The crazy thing is that Haiti shares an Island with the Dominican Republic on the East side which has the exact same natural resources & climate.
Billions have been pumped into Haiti for decades yet it remains a sink-hole while Santo Domingo across the border is a tourist destination.
Perhaps if the Holyweird crew who found it chic to make pledges & promises following the earthquake had actually carried through with them, the populous wouldnt have slipped into this abyss.
Im sure a few of them didnt forget to collect their designer refugees to wear like an accessory hanging from their shoulders though.
and yet, it is the USA which keeps Aristid in exile…..preferring the more malleable Preval to remain as President of Haiti