Above: a cholera treatment centre in Haiti (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has officially appointed Dr Paul Farmer to help “galvanize support” for anti-cholera efforts in Haiti.
The move was first announced when the UN launched a renewed fight to eliminate cholera in Haiti and the Dominican Republic earlier this month.
That plan will invest in “prevention, treatment and education,” according to the world body, as well as the use of an oral vaccine to fight cholera.
Farmer, who co-founded health organization Partners in Health, is a professor at Harvard University. He is considered one of the world’s leading experts on global health care.
Farmer previously served as the UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti from 2009 to 2012, focusing on economic and social development.
His official title is Special Advisor for Community-Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti.
“He has pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that successfully show that quality health care can be delivered in resource-poor settings,” Ban said in the announcement.
More than 7,750 people in Haiti have been killed since the outbreak of the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
Several studies have alleged that the disease was brought to Haiti by UN peacekeepers from Nepal.