WHO begins campaign against cholera in South Sudan

GENEVA – The World Health Organisation began a campaign on Saturday to prevent outbreaks of cholera in temporary camps in South Sudan housing thousands of people who have fled the country’s brutal two-month-old conflict.

The first phase will see around 94,000 people vaccinated against the disease in Minkaman camp in Awerial county, followed by 43,000 in camps around the capital Juba.

“Although currently there is not a cholera outbreak, people displaced by the recent conflict and living in the camps are at risk due to poor sanitary conditions and overcrowding,” the WHO said in a statement.

The programme is being carried out in coordination with the South Sudanese government, with the help of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and UNICEF.

“Minkaman camp and Juba camp have been selected because of the relative stability of the situation and easier access in those places,” said Dr Abdinasir Abubakar of the WHO’s disease surveillance and response team.

“We are also looking at other camps, and once the accessibility and security improves, we will expand the cholera vaccination campaigns into these areas.”

South Sudan has been embroiled in a bloody conflict since December 15, 2013 pitting troops loyal to President Salva Kiir against rebels linked to his sacked vice president Riek Machar.

The unrest in the world’s newest nation has killed thousands of people and displaced close to 900,000, including tens of thousands who have crammed into UN bases in fear of ethnic attacks by either Kiir’s Dinka tribe or Machar’s Nuer.

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by eating contaminated food or water, with children facing a particularly high risk of infection. It can kill in a matter of hours due to rapid dehydration.

The disease, which often breaks out around natural disasters or conflicts, affects between three million and five million people per year, with up to 120,000 dying from the disease.

Middle East Online :: Main English Channel

WHO begins campaign against cholera in South Sudan

UN faces lawsuit over Haiti cholera deaths

Published time: October 09, 2013 15:23

Health workers at a tent city on the outskirts of Haitian capital Port-au-Prince recover the body of cholera victim Ti Rosse Louizi on November 27, 2010. (AFP Photo / Hector Retamal)

Victims of a Haitian cholera epidemic said on Wednesday they were filing a lawsuit against the United Nations, while the world body says it is immune from such legal claims.

The Boston-based human rights group Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) said it will file a compensation claim against the world body on Wednesday over a cholera epidemic that has killed over 8,300 people and sickened more than 650,000 since October 2010.

“The plaintiffs include Haitians and Haitian Americans who contracted cholera themselves as well as family members of those who died of the disease,” the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said in a statement.

No details were given about the amount of compensation the victims were seeking.

In November 2011, the IJDH filed a petition at UN headquarters seeking at least $ 100,000 for the families or next-of-kin of each individual killed in the epidemic and a minimum of $ 50,000 for each victim who suffered illness from the outbreak.

The United Nations, however, said it would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by the cholera victims.

An independent panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to study the cholera outbreak issued a 2011 report that did not hold the Nepalese peacekeepers responsible for the deadly epidemic.

Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said in February of this year that the United Nations advised the legal representatives of the cholera victims that “the claims are not receivable pursuant to Section 29 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities.”

A report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, challenged the UN stance, saying the epidemic was likely brought to the Caribbean country by the UN peacekeepers when contaminated sewage was discharged from their living quarters into a waterway.

Before that, cholera, an infection causing severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death, had been rare in Haiti.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched a $ 2.2 billion initiative in December 2012 to rid Haiti of cholera over the next decade.

Meanwhile, there has been some difference of opinion on the question of compensation for the Haitian victims.

On Tuesday, a UN official broke with the ranks and argued on behalf of compensation for the thousands of Haitians involved.

The high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay, while falling short of blaming the UN peacekeepers for the epidemic, nevertheless declared: “I have used my voice both inside the United Nations and outside to call for the right…of those who suffered as a result of that cholera be provided with compensation,” Pillay said at an awards ceremony for human rights activists in Geneva.

UN associate spokesperson Farhan Haq said it was not the “United Nations’ practice to discuss in public claims filed against the organization.” 

RT – News

UN faces lawsuit over Haiti cholera deaths