Editor’s note: George Rupp is the president of the International Rescue Committee.

After the earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, the International Rescue Committee moved quickly to provide clean water, sanitation, and health care, and to meet the special needs of women and girls. since then our mission has grown to include health care, child welfare, economic recovery and development, and programs to combat violence against women. we provide direct support to nearly 100,000 people in 30 camps.

Although Haiti’s entrenched poverty and shattered infrastructure have slowed overall recovery efforts, we will continue to work alongside the Haitian people as long as it takes to ensure that communities are fully recovered and able to thrive. The IRC’s focused relief efforts over the past year have made a tangible impact – and saved lives. Here is an overview.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

* The IRC has worked in partnership with government agencies to rehabilitate water and sanitation systems at health clinics and youth centers and build latrines, showers, and safe water points in settlements for displaced people in Port-au-Prince, Leogane and surrounding areas.

* Our community hygiene-promotion volunteers are educating residents—130,000 so far—on good health and disease-prevention practices.

* we have installed 30 kiosks in camps and communities to distribute oral rehydration salts weekly to Haitians suffering cholera symptoms.

Primary Health Care

* IRC health teams were deployed to the devastated areas where no other aid organizations were present and where outbreaks of disease were likely.

* we ran health clinics in Carrefour and Delmas, two hard-hit areas of Port-au-Prince. The staff of the clinics has conducted 24,000 consultations, administered over 8,500 vaccinations and vitamin a doses, performed over 700 malaria tests, monitored over 3,400 children for malnutrition, and delivered prenatal care to over 750 women.

* The Carrefour clinic has also served as a cholera treatment unit. Nurses from the clinic and a special IRC cholera response team have carried out education and prevention activities in 30 camps.

Children and Youth

* The IRC has established safe spaces in 11 camps, where children ages 3 to 14 can learn, heal, and play, and we are creating additional centers for non-formal education and recreational activities.

* we have reunited nearly 150 separated children with family members or other caregivers. we have also trained case workers from other agencies to identify and register missing children.

* The IRC offers older teenagers vocational skills training and helps them obtain safe, age-appropriate work.

Women and Girls

* Women and girls are at the center of the IRC’s relief effort. The IRC was the first agency to deploy a specialist dedicated to reducing sexual violence and runs a full-time program to help ensure the safety of women and girls.

* The IRC has increased access to medical treatment and psychosocial services and provides safe spaces for women and girls who have experienced sexual or physical violence.

* The IRC distributed solar lights in dangerous areas to enhance safety and security and constructed private bathing stations to ensure privacy.

Economic Recovery and Development

* Our cash-for-work program has put more than 2,000 Haitians to work rebuilding infrastructure in Port-au-Prince and Leogane.

* The IRC provides technical expertise, tools, construction materials, and other resources to workers building more permanent camp facilities in preparation for jobs in the building trades.

* Women have equal access to employment opportunities in all IRC-sponsored projects and these opportunities are not limited by traditional gender roles.

The IRC is invested in Haiti’s long-term recovery. one year on, we look back on our progress while acknowledging that our work is far from done.

How you can helpOn this one-year anniversary of the earthquake, renew your commitment to the people of Haiti – and to others who are fleeing disaster, war, and persecution around the world.

Your donation will support the IRC’s efforts aiding people at their moment of greatest need—providing shelter, medical care, safety, and long-term support to rebuild communities.

Published: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 7:53 PM     Updated: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 7:59 PM

A Collier County, Fla., woman who traveled to visit family in Haiti’s disease-stricken Artibonite Valley has become Florida’s first local case of cholera transmitted from the beleaguered country, where the disease has killed nearly 1,000 and hospitalized more than 9,000.

Ramon Espinosa, the associated PressA child with cholera symptoms, right, rests as his father sits by his bedside at the Doctors Without Borders temporary hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Thousands of people have been hospitalized for cholera across Haiti with symptoms including serious diarrhea, vomiting and fever. Hundreds have died.

“She’s doing quite well,” said Dr. Thomas Torok, a cholera expert in the Florida Department of Health’s Bureau of Epidemiology. “Additional cases are under investigation in several counties.”

Torok declined to identify the woman, except to say she does not work in a job that puts her in close contact with the public, so the chance that she might pass on the disease is very small.

He said she returned from Haiti about a week ago showing cholera symptoms, and the Collier County Health Department confirmed the case and sent samples on to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for further testing.

Torok also declined to comment further about the additional suspected cases, citing department policy.

Last week, the Florida state health department issued an advisory requiring Florida doctors and hospitals to quickly test patients showing cholera symptoms — primarily profuse, watery diarrhea, dehydration and fever — to county health departments.

New cases are expected in Florida because the state has about 241,000 Haitian-born residents, many of whom travel back and forth frequently, particularly since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

By Fred Tasker, McClatchy Newspapers

8 December 2010 last updated at 10:48 ET Share this page the cholera epidemic has prompted protests against the UN in Haiti

None of Nepal's soldiers serving with UN peacekeepers in Haiti was tested for cholera before they went, the Nepalese army's chief medical officer says.

Brig Gen Dr Kishore Rana told the BBC the UN did not require such a test unless a soldier had cholera symptoms.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Nepalese army spokesman rejected a report suggesting the Haiti epidemic had originated from its soldiers.

Cholera has killed more than 2,000 Haitians, prompting anti-UN protests.

Brig Gen Rana contradicted previous statements by the Nepalese army which has maintained that all its troops were given a thorough medical test – including being tested for cholera – before being deployed to Haiti in October.

He said that UN protocol had been followed during the pre-deployment medical, but that none of the troops exhibited symptoms of cholera – so no follow-up tests were done.

His comments come after the leaking of a report by a French disease expert which suggested UN peacekeepers were the most likely source of the cholera epidemic sweeping Haiti.

‘Hypothetical’

Sources who saw the report by epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux said it had evidence the outbreak was caused by river contamination from Nepalese troops.

The report was rejected by army spokesman Ramindra Chhetri on Wednesday.

"We strongly condemn the making of such allegations with no firm evidence or facts," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.

He said the report's conclusions were "hypothetical" and said the Nepalese base in Haiti had been tested three times and no cholera had been found.

The cholera epidemic has killed 2,120 people, and nearly 100,000 cases have been treated, according to the Haitian government.

The report by Mr Piarroux found that the source of the outbreak was a Nepalese peacekeeping base, whose toilets contaminated the Artibonite river, media reports on Tuesday said.

The river was the main focus of the outbreak when it began in October, but cholera has since spread throughout the country.

The UN mission in Haiti, Minustah, said there was "no conclusive evidence" that UN peacekeepers were the source of the epidemic.

Minustah said the report by the French expert was "one report among many", but it was taking it "very seriously".

Many Haitians have blamed the Nepalese peacekeepers for bringing cholera to the country, and there have been violent demonstrations against them.

‘Not local’

The strain of cholera had already been matched to one from South Asia, although it is present in other Latin American countries.

Cholera is endemic in Nepal; last year, the disease killed more than 300 people in the far west of the country and this September, there was an outbreak in the capital Kathmandu.

Medical experts say it is possible to carry the disease without exhibiting symptoms.

In an interview last week, Mr Piarroux said it was clear cholera had been introduced to Haiti, which had not seen an outbreak of the disease for more than a century.

"It started in the centre of the country, not by the sea, nor in the refugee camps. the epidemic can't be of local origin. That's to say, it was imported," he told AFP.

UN peacekeepers have been in Haiti since 2004 to help restore political stability after years of unrest.

They have also been helping relief efforts following last January's massive earthquake, which killed about 230,000 people.

A young woman suffering cholera symptoms is carried by a relative to St. Catherine hospital, run by Doctors without Borders, in Port-au-Prince on Friday. (Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press)

Canada is promising an added $4 million to help fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti, International Co-Operation Minister Bev Oda said Friday.

The money is on top of the $1 million promised last month by the Conservative government.

Oda made the announcement in question period in the House of Commons.

More than 1,100 people have died and more than 18,000 have been hospitalized since cholera was first detected in late October in Haiti, which was devestated by an earthquake in January.

Cholera is spread by contaminated fecal matter.

Health experts say it can be easily treated with rehydration or prevented by ensuring good sanitation and that people drink only purified water.