Study suggests UN force brought cholera to Haiti

EVIDENCE “strongly suggests” that a United Nations peacekeeping mission brought a cholera strain to Haiti that has killed thousands of people, a study by a team of epidemiologists and physicians says.

The study is the strongest argument yet that Nepalese peacekeepers at a base near the town of Mirebalais brought with them the cholera, which spread through the waterways of the Artibonite region and elsewhere in the impoverished Caribbean country.

The disease has killed more than 5,500 people and affected more than 363,000 others since it was discovered in October, according to the Haitian government.