A Montreal-based aid organization is sending containers full of medicine and supplies to Haiti to fight the cholera outbreak.
Health Partners International organized the flight to send medicine to treat 50,000 people suffering from the disease, as well as purification tablets to supply 12 million litres of clean drinking water.
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Haiti was ravaged by Hurricane Matthew earlier this year.
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Since the 2010 earthquake, about 9,000 Haitians have died from cholera.
“Unfortunately, we have almost as many dead from cholera as we have from the hurricane itself,” said Haitain Ambassador to Canada Frantz Liautaud.
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The local government is beginning a large-scale vaccination campaign, hoping to inoculate 820,000 people against the deadly disease.
Cholera, which causes people to die from dehydration due to vomiting and diarrhea, was introduced into the country’s biggest river from a UN base where Nepalese peacekeepers were deployed.
“The bleakest is that you die, and that’s happening in the great majority of cases,” said Health Partners International head Denis St-Amour.
“I think people have the hurricane in the back of their minds, but there are longer term problems that exist in Haiti,” said Robert Ready with Food for the Poor Canada.
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His organization is spearheading the distribution of the supplies.
“Here, I’m in Montreal, I have clean water and I take that for granted,” said Ready.
“That’s the kind of basic need that needs to be addressed.”