EconomicsHaiti: Health: Money disappears, few homes for homeless, but some br+t spots even in the face of fast-spreading cholera

Who wants to read about the symptoms of cholera, this disease that's on the attack in Haiti at present? No one. Yet christian journaletics often has to face some of the ugliest facts hurting the world and its people today. So, I'm not going to start off with the D-word in the quote form New York Times (Oct24.2k10) below.

Before turning to cholera, I want to mention that huge pledges of aid money, and considerable amounts of donated funds to private relief appeals, are not reaching the Haitians after all these months.  A week or two ago, Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, clamored regarding the h+ly visible public figures who earlier appealed for contributions to Haitian relief (incidentally garnering "brownie points" while in the spotl+t on this matter).  So many of the organizations have not gotten the money to the people on the ground that O'Reilly decided to go after the hotshots who now were silent about the widespread non-delivery by the relief rackets.  How else can a TV nooztainer move the broken-wingd Angels for Haiti?  And whose racking off, if nothing else, the interest that woud accrue were the contributed funds sitting in a bank? [I pawz to note that Haiti relief advocate George Clooney is presently busy trying to keep the Darfur and South Sudan impending re-disasters in the attention of the powers that be and the public. He's the exception. Sean Penn deserve special honourable mention becawz he keeps returning to Haiti and keeps the slow develops in focus for the public, too.]  Back a bit, a prominent Republican Senator was qu+etly blocking even USA gov funds promised -- becawz Congress had made no provision actually to allocate within the budget, which woud have meant cutting expenditures from other accounts where gov holds its gravy.  That goes to the heart of the current gov dishonesty about its budget, its various accounts, and the funding of projects without fiscal control and without increasing the national debt we owe in large part to China.

Poor, poor Haiti!

Before I go to the D-word, one small ray of l+t you may otherw+z have missed, has to do with the fact that shelter stronger than tents under the downpour of rain and mudification of the camps for the homeless, has seen a tiny amelioration recently.

Despite $1.2 billion in donations, Haiti shows scant signs of recovery">Aid money for Haiti disappears before reaching destitute.

Homes for Haiti: Simple, low-cost, prefab houses/shelters for homeless Haitians post earthquake">Wesley Clark et al.

Diarrhea, while a common ailment here, is a symptom of cholera. And anxiety has been growing fiercely that the cholera epidemic, which began last week in the northwest of Haiti, will soon strike the earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

“It travels with the speed of lightning, I’ve heard, and it can kill a person in four hours,” said Jean Michel Maximilien, a camp leader. “So of course we are all on edge.”

For now, the cholera outbreak, with more than 250 deaths and more than 3,100 confirmed cases, has been contained to the central rural regions around the Artibonite River, 60 miles north of the capital. But Port-au-Prince is tensely preparing for its arrival in the densely populated slums and tent camps here, with treatment centers being established, soap and water purification tablets being distributed and public safety announcements stressing hygiene.

The government reported optimistically on Sunday that the epidemic might be stabilizing. Fatalities have declined — from 10.6 percent of known cases three days earlier to 8.2 percent now.

But international health authorities cautioned against premature optimism. “We cannot read too much into the slight improvement in the fatality rate,” Dr. Michel Thieren of the Pan American Health Organization said. “The epidemic has not spread yet, but it is still increasing roughly at the same rate in the Artibonite area.”

Since the January earthquake, this devastated country has been bracing for a secondary disaster — a hurricane, an eruption of violence, an outbreak of disease. But nobody anticipated that cholera would make its first appearance in 50 years. It was “the one thing we thought we were relatively safe on,” said Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the United Nations humanitarian coordination office.

This outbreak, this blockage of funds, this abuse of the American public's contributions is happening r+t on our doorstep and within our own house.

Poor, poor Haiti!

-- EconoMix