Haiti cholera 'far worse than expected', experts fear

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: BBC

The cholera epidemic affecting Haiti looks set to be far worse than officials had thought, experts fear.

Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.

Aid efforts will need ramping up, US researchers told The Lancet journal.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12744929?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[deutsey]

1. God lord...maybe it is the fucking end of the world

:evilfrown:

[aquart]

2. No, but it will be one of those DNA bottlenecks.

There are going to be lots and lots less of us in the coming years.

[deutsey]

3. Yeah, this, along with what's happening in Japan

The odds are rising against us.

[jwirr]

4. Diseases like this will probably happen in Japan also. Clean water

is hard to provide in a disaster.

[aquart]

5. Planet never liked us anyway.

But we really do need to rethink the purpose of a nation. Some would have you believe that the United States is merely a Chamber of Commerce service center. It isn't.

The purpose of a nation is the protection and encouragement of the well-being of its citizens. Any legislation should be tested against that standard. Any government edict should be tested against that standard. The often illusory "it'll provide jobs" is utterly inadequate to meet that standard.

[hlthe2b]

7. Seems that way, lately....

Geebus.. Is there no good news in the world? At all?

[Charleston Chew]

6. what is Haiti?

Too bad Haiti isn't an en vouge cause anymore.

As "Democrats" we only care about what the corprate media feeds us in heaping helpings.

[EFerrari]

9. We try to post stories about Haiti in the Latin America forum.

Kim Ives, CEPR and Haiti Aid Watch are all on twitter, too, but you're right. It's not easy to find good information.

[DeadEyeDyck]

8. Haiti is so last week

sorry for them but that is how disasters happen

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Over 11,000 deaths predicted

That's horrible. Surely, over that timescale, it should be preventable? It should be possible to install the basic water supplies and an organised method of sewage disposal when there's months to do it in, shouldn't it?

[Igel]

11. Sure, it's possible.

Really difficult, really expensive. It would have to be organized just right. Lay thousands of miles of pipe, put in desalination plants and pumping stations, install sewage treatment plants and recycling plants. You'd have to start training the people to run the plants when you started construction. You'd have to ignore the usual bureaucratic nonsense and not worry about impact statements; you'd have to seize the land with curtailed due process (assuming Haiti has one). There'd have to be laws against certain practices that people have followed for years--they may not like them, but changing habits is still hard. You'd have to work out continued funding for supplies, maintenance, and repairs to the infrastructure because the people probably wouldn't be able to afford to pay enough to maintain it on their own.

If the Haitian government's corrupt or on a power trip--"We will not be dictated to"--then it would be much more difficult and much more expensive.

Yeah. It's possible. Just highly improbable.