PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitian volunteers have been banned from departing for African countries hit by the Ebola virus, the government said yesterday, citing other diseases that have devastated the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
A statement signed by the Ministers of Health, Interior and Defense was released after news appeared on social networks that the United Nations was recruiting volunteers to respond to the Ebola outbreak.
In the document dated October 2, the ministers forbade any agency to organise recruitment of Haitian volunteers, including the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). The ministers called for “the common sense of every citizen to avoid other more dramatic situations than what we have experienced in the recent past.” A cholera epidemic hit Haiti four years ago, and this year there was an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus known as chikungunya, with tens of thousands of suspected cases. Since October, 2010, Haiti’s cholera epidemic has killed 8,500 people and infected more than 700,000. It may have been brought to Haiti by Nepalese peace keepers stationed near a major river.
Cholera, which had not been documented in Haiti in almost 100 years prior to the outbreak, is an infection that causes severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death, and is caused by poor sanitation.
