UN to set up independent panel of experts to probe origin of cholera in Haiti

[News_Editor]

UN to set up independent panel of experts to probe origin of cholera in Haiti

2010-12-16 22:32:49 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- The United Nations (UN) on Thursday said it is exploring the establishment of an international scientific panel to look into the source of the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

"We are calling for an international panel and we are in discussions with WHO [the UN World Health Organization] to find the best experts to be in a panel, completely independent... [and] have the best investigation on the source of the outbreak," the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, said.

The organization later added that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is in discussions with interested stakeholders, including the WHO, and that the panel will be 'completely independent' and will have full access to all UN premises and personnel.

The specific terms of reference will be established in the coming days and Ban may have more to say on this on Friday.

Haiti's cholera epidemic, which broke out in October, has already killed more than 2,000 people, according to figures from Haiti's Ministry of Health, with over 44,000 others hospitalized, even as the country struggles to recover from the January quake, which killed 200,000 people and displaced some 1.3 million others - most of whom are still living in crowded and unsanitary tent camps.

There have been widespread media reports claiming that UN peacekeepers from Nepal, serving with the UN stabilization mission in Haiti, are the likely source of the epidemic, with infected water having spread from their base into a nearby tributary of the Artibonite River.

Le Roy said experts who have studied the epidemic have so far come up with different theories on the origin of the infection. "There is no consensus among scientists on this issue," he noted.

The peacekeeping chief added that none of the Nepalese peacekeepers had tested positive for cholera or shown any symptoms of the disease, and that repeated analyzes of water from their camp have not detected the strain of the disease.

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