The first people affected by the outbreak lived near a United Nations base housing over 450 peacekeepers, recently transferred from Nepal where cholera was already an issue.
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The deputy spokesperson for the secretary general, Farhan Haq, said, “Over the past year, the United Nations has become convinced that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera”.
But it represents a significant shift after more than five years of high-level denial of any involvement or responsibility of the United Nations in the outbreak, which has killed at least 10,000 people and sickened hundreds of thousands.
The UN has always disputed claims that Nepalese peacekeepers brought cholera to the island nine months after an natural disaster struck Haiti, the first known appearance of the disease there in over 150 years.
In a decision issued late Thursday, the USA 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in NY affirmed a lower court’s January 2015 dismissal of a lawsuit brought in the worst outbreak of cholera in recent history.
In a statement first reported by the New York Times, the office of the secretary-general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, said that the organization had chose to step up its efforts to fight back cholera in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The United Nations’ belated acknowledgement it played a role in a cholera epidemic in Haiti that has killed almost 10,000 people was hailed by victims’ advocates Thursday as vindication of their efforts to hold the world body accountable.
The U.N. stopped short of saying it caused the epidemic.
Haq reiterated Thursday that the U.N.’s legal position in claiming diplomatic immunity “has not changed”.
The U.N. countered Concannon’s class action lawsuit by saying it is immune under global law from such legal actions.
Lawyers then appealed the ruling and are now awaiting a decision from the court.
Five U.N. human rights experts criticized the organization past year for denying victims “justice”.
He told reporters later that a United Nations -appointed panel already looked into the U.N.’s involvement.
Cholera is an acute gastrointestinal illness caused by ingesting food or drink contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. But that claim conflicts with the testimony of health experts who say that the world organization has consistently dropped the ball over the cholera epidemic. Beatrice Lindstrom of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said, “this is a groundbreaking first step for justice”.
In a report published earlier this month, French epidemiologist Roland Piarroux found that more than 21,000 cases and 200 deaths took place from January to June this year.
The report by Philip Alston, special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, will probably be released to the public in late September and presented to the General Assembly in October, Haq said in an emailed statement.
A recent report by Doctors Without Borders has raised the possibility the disease may have killed far more Haitians than previously estimated.
Alston went beyond criticizing the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to blame the entire United Nations system.
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“With a rainy season that will last through November or possibly December, we worry that cholera will be especially deadly this year, easily killing 400 or 500 people”. PIH has treated numerous hundreds of thousands of cholera patients at its clinics across the country.
