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Slow but steady gains half a decade after Haiti quake

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Haiti Earthquake (116229)
Haiti Earthquake

Five years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 200,000 people and destroyed a minimum of 100,000 buildings, there are small but positive signs of hope that the impoverished island nation is rebounding.

Although the immediate outpouring from nations around the world was generous with $10 billion pledged, the real amount that has gradually found its way to Haiti hovers around $2.5 billion. Most of the amount has been used for emergency first-aid, food and temporary lodging. Relief is said to remain uncoordinated; Haiti’s president Michel Martelly told NPR that huge sums of cash does not necessarily solve the larger problems of logistics, poverty relief, shelter and illness for tens of thousands of persons still homeless and unemployed.

“Food gets eaten, tarps wear out and band-aids get pulled off,” said Jonathan Katz, the Associated Press bureau chief at the time of the quake. “Ultimately, after all that money is spent, people aren’t left with anything durable.”

Some of the “donor” nations counted debt relief as donations, “yet those debts were never realistically going to be paid back,” Katz told NPR. Also, the cost of sending recovery troops was counted as “donations” and the country simply does not have the funds for repayment.

Haiti was hit with a twin disaster five years ago this week. Not long after the 7.0 magnitude quake, a deadly cholera epidemic killed another 8,500 persons and infected hundreds of thousands. The strain of bacteria was later traced back to a United Nations base that was housing Nepalese peacekeeping troops.

Haiti suffers from poor sanitation; those who can afford it have cesspools in their homes that are emptied by hand by sanitation workers using buckets. Most people can’t afford that system, so they empty their waste in open fields or canals. From there the bacteria flourishes and enters the water system.

There is progress toward rebuilding the national public health system. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other partners have made strides in the reconstruction of the public health sector to establish disease surveillance systems and to enhance laboratory capacity. Today, Haiti is said to have more “disease detectives” to quickly detect outbreaks and effectively respond. More than 250 water and sanitation technicians are helping rural areas improve drinking water, provide more childhood vaccinations and new facilities have been built for the Ministry of Health for laboratory, epidemiology and research.

“Following the earthquake, the CDC expanded the partnership with the people of Haiti to not only support their fight against HIV/AIDS, but to support reconstruction and rebuilding of the health system and to respond to the subsequent cholera epidemic,” said Tom Kenyon, M.D., the CDC’s director of global health.

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