Paul Farmer appointed as U.N. Special Adviser for Haiti cholera efforts

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "has appointed renowned United States physician Paul Farmer to help galvanize support to eliminate cholera in Haiti, where the disease has already claimed over 7,750 lives," the U.N. News Centre reports. "He will also be charged with advising 'on lessons learned' from the epidemic and 'how those can be applied in Haiti and other settings,'" according to a U.N. statement, Agence France-Presse notes, adding, "Farmer, 53, heads Harvard's department of global health and social medicine. From 2009 to 2012, he also served as deputy to the U.N. special envoy for Haiti under former U.S. President Bill Clinton" (12/29). "The naming of the Special Adviser for Community-Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti comes just weeks after Mr. Ban launched a new initiative to help eliminate cholera in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the two nations that make up the Caribbean island of Hispaniola," the U.N. News Centre writes (12/28).