PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — When Haiti’s leading infectious disease specialist heard that cholera, the deadly waterborne disease that he and others had spent nearly a decade trying to eradicate in the impoverished country, was back, he was angry.
But Dr. Jean William “Bill” Pape, who runs the Caribbean’s largest HIV/AIDS research center and most recently helped lead Haiti’s COVID-19 response, was not surprised.
The disease is just part of the latest wave of ills to plague the country. Malaria is on the rise in Haiti, and so too is acute malnutrition in children under 5 and in pregnant women. HIV/AIDS patients can’t get their medication and Haitians in need of medical care often can’t get it because it requires crossing through gang strongholds, risking their lives to reach a hospital or clinic that may or may not be open.
