In these risk analyses he studied how cholera spreads through regions and communities. In November 2010 he was called in by the Haitian government and French Embassy to investigate the origin and course of the world's largest cholera epidemic of recent times, and to assist authorities in creating an effective control program. These activities were highlighted in the book Deadly River, authored by Ralph R. Frerichs. Piarroux related the end of the story and related scientific controversies in the book Choléra. Haïti 2010-2018 : histoire d’un désastre ... Piarroux is an ongoing member of the travel-related and imported diseases committee of the French Ministry of Health. He is a founding member of the Global Alliance Against Cholera, started in the eastern part of DR Congo, that has since expanded to other cholera-affected countries. He has been awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2017.
Life and career
Renaud Piarroux was born in Cherbourg, France, the son of painter Jean Piarroux and medical pathologist Marie-Claude Deleval. Following graduation, he became Assistant Professor of Parasitology at BesançonUniversity Hospital, where he created the Parasitology-Mycology Department and became a Full Professor in 2001. He was director of Santé et Environnement Rural Franche-Comté, and the EA2276 research team at Franche-Comté University from 2004 to 2007. In Besançon, his academic publication subjects included: Farmer's lung, the relationship between mold and asthma, unhealthy dwellings, cholera, echinococcosis. Following a move in 2008 to Marseille, his work focused on three subjects:
Creating and evaluating diagnosis tools in parasitology and mycology and their consequences on patient management
Environmental moist exposure and health consequences
His interest in cholera epidemics started in 1994 while working as a volunteer pediatrician in Goma, Zaire during an extensive cholera outbreak following the Rwandan genocide. He next encountered cholera while working with MDM in Grand Comorro in 1998. There, he created a surveillance system that with rapid follow-up and simple interventions eventually brought the outbreak under control. Piarroux next helped in defining cholera control priorities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with the help of a local epidemiologist, who became his student, Dr. Didier Bompangue. They observed that cholera regularly came back from the lake area in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Enlarging his study in time and space, and using genetic analysis he concluded that only a few towns play the role of amplifier, and that cholera was linked to human mobility. In 2010 Piarroux was asked by the French government to investigate the Haiti cholera epidemic; questions arose in the scientific community as Haiti had never been hit by cholera before. His investigation led to the controversial conclusion that the epidemic was imported by United Nations soldiers in a Nepalese UN peacekeeping camp near Mirebalais in the center of Haiti. His findings ran counter to the more popular Haitian environmental cholera paradigm. Pr Rita Colwell, the main proponent of the environmental theory, postulated it was a "perfect storm" of three converging factors, an earthquake followed by a hot summer and then a Hurricane that triggered the explosive epidemic. Piarroux agreed that some vibrios are living in coastal waters, but argued that in Haiti, cholera didn't come ex nihilo from coastal water, and further that the storm came after the epidemics had started. Other scientists demonstrated that the cholera in Haiti originated from Nepal. Human mobility was thus key to disease transmission in Haiti. This was important information for formulating an effective elimination strategy. Details of the political and scientific controversies are presented in Deadly River by Ralph R. Frerichs. Following the publication of a long time United Nations Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, the Secretary-General of the United NationsBan Ki-moon acknowledged the role of United Nations soldiers in the beginning of the Haitian cholera epidemics. He presently defends a new approach based on an "intense effort to treat and prevent the disease, as well as a concerted effort to deliver material assistance to those most directly affected." Piarroux has three adult children. He resides in Paris.
