Are you aware?

I read about life in Haiti and wonder... do Americans know what our neighbors are facing?

Here are a few facts from a recent radio interview with Dr. Paul Farmer, United Nations Deputy Special Envoy in Haiti.


DAVIES: How many people are still without permanent homes?



Dr. FARMER: The estimates right now are that there was a peak at 1.3 million in the summer and fall after the quake, that as many as 800,000 are still without shelter all these many months later. And of course this is a reflection not only of the destruction of the housing stock, some estimates have 225,000 homes destroyed, but this huge number is not simply a reflection of what got destroyed in the quake.

It's also a reflection of very poor access to housing for poor people in the urban areas of Haiti that has been a longstanding problem....

DAVIES: Right, and we should mention, that 800,000 is out of a country of, what, nine million, right?


Dr. FARMER: Right.


DAVIES: Right. Now, a cholera epidemic erupted in Haiti last year. First of all, just explain the illness for us.


Dr. FARMER: Cholera is a waterborne bacterial disease that causes very distinctive, explosive watery diarrhea, and it can shrivel a very healthy person, kill them in a matter of hours. It's really one of the few infectious disease emergencies that we see. It's also, of course, a public health emergency because it's spread through poor sanitation.


DAVIES: Well, let's talk about them, the state of health conditions and particularly the cholera epidemic. Is that under control?


Dr. FARMER:   ...  I would say that the epidemic is not only not under control, but it sort of exploded on the scene like a bomb, causing some hundreds of thousands of cases. Again, there's poor reporting capacity in Haiti, so we're not sure how many, and you know, upwards of 6,000 deaths. Again, that's probably an underestimate on both scores: the number of cases and the number of deaths.


Are we aware?

Is our awareness evidenced by our action?