Cholera quietly still kills dozens a month in Haiti

The persistence of the preventable disease has alarmed public health experts who fear that attention and resources have been diverted by newer challenges, including the regional spread of the Zika virus and the political crisis that recently halted Haiti's elections.

Dr. Joseph Donald Francois, who coordinates the health ministry's efforts to combat the illness, still believes Haiti, with international help, can eliminate cholera by 2022.

Researchers say there is ample evidence the disease was introduced to the country's biggest river by inadequately treated sewage from a base of U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal, one of the units that have rotated in and out of a multinational force in Haiti since 2004.

Five U.N. human rights experts have criticized the U.N.'s "effective denial of the fundamental right of the victims of cholera to justice," saying in a letter late last year to top U.N. officials that the approach "challenges the credibility of the Organization as an entity that respects human rights."

While the number of cholera cases has been significantly reduced from its first wave and the mortality rate has been slashed to lower than 1 percent from a high of 9 percent in December 2010, the fact that cholera is still killing Haitians more than five years on is galling to public health experts.

Ivers was working in Haiti's central plateau when cholera started sickening and killing so many people that it gave the nation the globe's highest rate of cholera one year after it was introduced.