Safe water and sanitation, vital tools to combat the current
cholera epidemic, are absent in most communities in Haiti,
reports IRIN. The death toll rose to 501 on 6 November 2010, up
from 442 on 3 November, and hospitalisations for cholera totaled
7,359, up from 6,742. Haiti is one of the few countries in the
world where both urban and rural sanitation coverage has
steadily decreased between 1990 and 2008, according to the WHO /
UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and
Sanitation (WHO/UNICEF, March 2010). Historical legacies of
inequality, corruption, and extreme poverty all contribute to
the Haitian government’s systemic inability to deliver safe
water and sanitation. In the village of Deslandes in the Petite
Rivière d’Artibonite District, there is one well for 600 people
that rarely functions, there are no toilets and reaching the
nearest health centre requires crossing a river. Most people use
the River Artibonite – thought to be the source of the epidemic
– as their primary source of