Dirty job shows why cholera still kills in Haiti

(29 Dec 2016) The men strip off their clothes, wrap themselves in rags and plug their nostrils with tobacco to hide the stench. They squeeze into a cramped outhouse with a reeking pit to scoop buckets of human excrement with their bare hands. It's just another night's work for this four-man team of "bayakou" — the Haitian waste cleaners who take to the streets at night doing a miserable, indispensable job that creates such social scorn that few admit they do it at all. The pit latrine cleaners form the lowest ranks of a primitive sanitation system that is largely responsible for the fierce persistence of cholera in this country since it was introduced to the country's largest river in October 2010 by sewage from a base of UN peacekeepers. Haiti still relies mostly on crude methods of waste disposal that have crippled its ability to combat a water-borne illness that can cause diarrhea so severe that victims can die of dehydration in hours if they don't get treatment. It has sickened roughly 800,000 people and killed at least 9,500. The UN, which this month acknowledged not doing enough to help the country fight cholera while stopping short of an admission of responsibility for introducing it, has announced a new fundraising plan to battle the easily treatable disease. It seeks to raise 400 (m) million US dollars from UN member states, with the first 200 (m) million dedicated in large part to treating patients with care like oral rehydration fluids, while promoting improvements in hygiene by distributing supplies like chlorine and soap. Improving water, sanitation and health systems are also stated goals of this first phase. But critics say the UN has failed to consistently focus on the long-term problem — how Haitians dispose of their waste and get their water. What's needed, critics say, are sustained investments in infrastructure that would prevent fecal matter from contaminating water supplies and continuing the cycle of disease. Complicating matters is the factr that the cholera bacteria, previously unknown in the country, has adapted to waterways and become endemic in the country. A major challenge is figuring out how to engage Haiti's bayakou and change behaviours. Some of the nocturnal workers are hired by sanitation companies, but most are independent operators who empty into drainage canals in violation of the law, creating ideal conditions for the spread of cholera and other diseases. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e89dcb78aeb418e2d267971276620238 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork