By KEITH R. STEVENSON may 02, 2011

Greg Pershyn, of East Stroudsburg, has been an installation technician for 18 years, setting up phone and computer networks for area businesses. he now runs his own business, ensuring that data and calls get to where they’re supposed to.

Earlier this month, he answered a call from a higher power to go and do good works in another part of the world.

Pershyn, a member of the Stroudsburg Wesleyan Church, had been looking for a way to directly contribute to the lives of others when he was approached by the missionary group CrossWorld, which presented him with an opportunity to use his skills in Haiti.

“I think that God placed it on my heart that I wanted to do something for Haiti, but I didn’t know what. All of sudden there was this project that this pastor wanted to install a PA system and it was exactly what I do. I thought, ‘Now we’re talking my stuff!’”

With his way paid by Stroudsburg Wesleyan Church and the Light of the World Church in Stroudsburg, Pershyn toted 1,000 feet of cable donated by Friedman Electric and components acquired below cost to the town of La Pointe on the northern coast of Haiti, home to the Beraca Medical Center.

Once there, he set to work installing a public address system across the six-building campus.

The 15-speaker system is being used to funnel music into waiting areas and more importantly, is used by the doctors to help educate people about diseases, their signs and symptoms and the treatments that help prevent or cure them.

“In the week that we were down there, three people died from rabies. So, they actually had the doctors talking on this for a while and educating them on what to do with a dog bite,” he said. “That alone may have saved a life.”

He spent seven days in the country, enjoying home-cooked local cuisine, and he returned with a different outlook on his life in the states.

“It gives you a renewed appreciation, not so much of what we have, but of what we don’t have here anymore. My cell phone didn’t work down there. It was nice to be able to just concentrate on what you were doing, or to have a sit-down lunch break. It was nice to not have the mad pace that we have here.”

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Oct. 22: a man suffering from cholera symptoms lies on the floor of the hospital in Marchand Dessalines, Haiti.

GENEVA — the United Nations asked for $164 million Friday to fight the cholera outbreak in Haiti that has already claimed 724 lives and is expected to continue spreading for up to a year.

The funds will be used by U.N. and non-governmental organizations to bring in additional doctors, medicines and water-purification equipment to treat up to 200,000 people who could show cholera symptoms ranging from mild diarrhea to severe dehydration, the global body said.

“We absolutely need this money as soon as possible,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N. humanitarian office.

She told reporters in Geneva that the funds need to be provided quickly “otherwise all our efforts can be outrun by the epidemic.”

At least 11,125 cases of cholera have been confirmed in five of Haiti’s 10 districts since the outbreak began last month. ten deaths and 278 cases have occurred in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the epidemic isn’t likely to end soon.

“The projections of 200,000 cases over the next six to twelve months shows the amplitude of what could be expected,” said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl. he noted that the current fatality rate of 6.5 percent is far higher than it should be.

“No one alive in Haiti has experienced cholera before, so it’s a population which is very susceptible to the bacteria,” Hartl said. “Once it is in water systems it transmits very easily, and it transmits among people who are often asymptomatic.”

“Cholera, now that it is in Haiti, probably the bacteria will be there for a number of years to come,” he added. “It will not go away.”

The cause of the outbreak in Haiti is still unknown. the country hadn’t seen cholera cases for decades before last month.

“The specific origin of this specific outbreak is something which probably will be investigated at some point, but what is important right now is the response on the ground,” Hartl said.

26 January 2011 last updated at 18:05 ET Share this page Cholera is spread by contaminated food or water

More than 20 Venezuelans have contracted cholera after visiting the Dominican Republic, the Venezuelan health ministry has said.

The patients were taken to hospital in Caracas after showing symptoms and were being kept in quarantine.

They had travelled to the Dominican Republic for a wedding.

Cholera reached the Dominican Republic last November from neighbouring Haiti, where an epidemic has killed almost 4,000 people.

A number of other Venezuelans are also thought to have the disease.

"the people must remain calm because all those infected had attended a family gathering in the Dominican Republic," said Venezuelan Health Minister Eugenia Sader.

She added that Venezuela had sufficient medical supplies to treat 10,000 cholera cases.

The Dominican Republic has recorded 238 cases of cholera and registered its first cholera death last Sunday. the victim was a 53-year-old Haitian man.

In Haiti, almost 200,000 people have been infected since the epidemic broke out in October, but aid agencies say the rate of infection has slowed.

For Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, it is the first cholera outbreak in more than a century.

Venezuela, in contrast, has suffered occasional outbreaks in recent decades.

Cholera is a bacterial disease spread by contaminated drinking water or food, but is treatable with oral or intravenous rehydration and antibiotics.

Health officials said that the victim had been in Haiti and lived in the Dominican city of Higuey, where the first case of cholera was registered in November.

A health ministry statement said Renauld Francois, 53, died on Thursday, and that an autopsy would be performed to learn the exact cause of death but that his symptoms were “consistent with the disease.”

The Dominican Republic has reported 152 cases of cholera since the outbreak in Haiti last year.

In Haiti, officials say 3,889 people have died since the discovery of the epidemic in mid-October through January 16, out of 194,000 infected.

The two countries share the island of Hispaniola.

The Dominican Republic’s government has said it will step up its prevention system around Higuey, a popular tourist destination in the far east of the country.

The country has tried to tighten border controls to stop the disease spreading from Haiti, but tens of thousands of Haitians regularly travel to the country for work.