New Principal Investigators 12

In January 2010, an earthquake hit Haiti with its epicentre near Port-au-Prince, the capital. More than 200,000 people died, over 300,000 were injured and near 1.5 millions lost their homes. The following October, a Cholera epidemic started in northern central Haiti and rapidly spread to the whole country. This surprised the health authorities and the international community, as Haiti had been Cholera-free for more than a hundred years. How was Cholera introduced to the country and why did it spread so fast? Although the scientific response was rapid and used the latest genomics technologies, the political importance in the question led to contention among scientists and delays in having a clear answer.