UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- There have been no new cases of cholera in Haiti for nine months, a landmark in a nine-year battle, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Monday, citing the UN special envoy for Haiti.
"In an op-ed published in the Miami Herald this weekend, Josette Sheeran said there have been no confirmed cases of cholera in the country for the past nine months," Haq told correspondents at a regular briefing.
"Reaching this critical milestone was possible through an innovative plan that ensured a unified response," Sheeran said in the op-ed piece.
The Haitian Ministry of Health and UNICEF deployed a network of rapid response teams, staffed entirely by Haitians, which demonstrated that cholera can be brought under control by intervening directly through an effective alert-response system at the community level, according to the envoy.
However, she warned that people should not "let down the guard" over the disease which broke out in 2010. "As we enter the last mile of the cholera epidemic, we must ensure that Haitians continue to have access to the robust surveillance system and response capacity we have jointly developed."
