Watch: new documentary tells the story behind MASS Design Group's cholera clinic in Haiti

2016-09-20T14:24:00-04:00

Just nine months after a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, killing hundreds of thousands of people, a cholera epidemic broke out. While it became clear shortly after that the epidemic began with U.N. peacekeepers, who had been active in Haiti since 2004 and brought the disease from Nepal, the U.N. only just recently took formal responsibility. With overwhelming rebuilding efforts and damaged infrastructure throughout the country, Haiti was made even more vulnerable, and the disease spread through consumption of tainted water and food.

To attend to the sick population, Haitian infectious disease specialist Dr. Jean-William Pape and his organization, Les Centres GHESKIO, set up and ran temporary treatment sites, but after two years, when the epidemic didn’t seem to be shrinking back, Dr. Pape realized that unsanitary waste collection practices in the treatment centers were contaminating the groundwater, reintroducing the disease into the population.

So to cut off the cycle of r...

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Watch: new documentary tells the story behind MASS Design Group's cholera clinic in Haiti