2010s Haiti cholera outbreak

2010s Haiti cholera outbreak

Haiti
Date	October 2010 – February 2019
Location	Haiti
Coordinates	19°06′N 72°20′W / 19.100°N 72.333°W / 19.100; -72.333
Cause	Suspected contamination by United Nations peacekeepers.[1][2]
Casualties
10,300 dead (all countries)
Haiti 9,794 dead (28 December 2017)[3] Dominican Republic 503 dead (28 December 2017)[3] Cuba 3 dead (18 October 2013)[4] Mexico 1 dead (18 October 2013)[4] Cases: 819,790 (Haiti) 33,342 (DR) 678 (Cuba) 190 (Mexico) Cases recorded in: Florida, United States Venezuela Haiti Cuba Mexico Dominican Republic Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands

The 2010s Haiti cholera outbreak was the first modern large-scale outbreak of cholera—a disease once considered beaten back largely due to the invention of modern sanitation. The disease was reintroduced to Haiti in October 2010, not long after the disastrous earthquake earlier that year, and since then cholera has spread across the country and become endemic, causing high levels of both morbidity and mortality.^[5] Nearly 800,000 Haitians have been infected by cholera, and more than 9,000 have died, according to the United Nations (UN).^[6] Cholera transmission in Haiti today^[when?] is largely a function of eradication efforts including WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), education, oral vaccination,^[7][8] and climate variability.^[9] Early efforts were made to cover up the source of the epidemic, but thanks largely to the investigations of journalist Jonathan M. Katz and epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux,^[10] it is widely believed to be the result of contamination by infected United Nations peacekeepers deployed from Nepal.^[11] In terms of total infections, the outbreak has since been surpassed by the war-fueled 2016–2021 Yemen cholera outbreak, although the Haiti outbreak is still one of the most deadly modern outbreaks.^[12] After a three-year hiatus, new cholera cases reappeared in October 2022.^[13]