UN peacekeepers deploy to Haiti without cholera vaccinations
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The UN stabilisation mission in Haiti is administering cholera vaccines to a 140-member police unit from India months after it arrived in the Caribbean nation without the required protection.
Cholera vaccination is mandatory for all UN troops and police deploying to peacekeeping operations. The waterborne disease is endemic in India.
The failure to ensure that a foreign police unit was vaccinated comes after cholera was introduced to Haiti’s largest river in October 2010 by sewage from a base of UN peacekeepers from Nepal. Haiti continues to wrestle with the worst outbreak of the disease in recent history.
UN mission spokeswoman Ariane Quentier said the Indian police unit has received vaccine doses “to take in the coming hours, days”.
The UN puts responsibility for peacekeeper vaccinations on member states.
