Fear, Confusion and Suspicion...

This lovely slide was given to me by one of our Bangladesh team members. Hard to believe this microscopic little bugger can kill someone who is untreated in a matter of hours.

Two days into our mission and things have gotten interesting... When the team from Bangladesh landed Monday to lend us their expertise our original plan was to head north to one of the hardest hit areas in Haiti. Cap Haitien is a city on the Northern coast of Haiti that has the highest death rate of any region currently at 7.5% with more than 1,500 hospitalized and 119 deaths thus far. However this plan was foiled by the outbreak of violence and protests in Cap Haitien. Ground traffic was halted by road blockades and commercial and private airline traffic canceled flights in and out of the city. The residents there are angry because they believe that the outbreak of cholera can be blamed on a Nepalese contingent of the UN that has an installation there. Cap Haitiens claim the Nepalese UN peace keepers dumped untreated sewage into the water supply there. The UN denies this claim. Lack of understanding of spread and transmission of cholera impair the capacity of Haiti to appropriately treat those most severely affected by the disease leading to the high death rates. There are reports of families and even physicians and nurses not wanting to touch cholera patients for fear of transmission delaying or even preventing life saving treatment.