11:38 AM Wednesday Dec 8, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE - A contingent of UN peacekeepers is the likely source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed at least 2,000 people, a French scientist said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux concluded that the cholera originated in a tributary of Haiti's Artibonite river, next to a UN base outside the town of Mirebalais.
He was sent by the French government to assist Haitian health officials in determining the source of the outbreak, a French Foreign Ministry official said.
"No other hypothesis could be found to explain the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in this village ... not affected by the earthquake earlier this year and located dozens of kilometres from the coast and (tent) camps," he wrote in a report that has not been publicly released.
The report also calls for a further investigation of the outbreak, improved medical surveillance and sanitation procedures for UN peacekeeping troops and better support for Haitian health authorities.
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