Puerto Principe, February 17 (RHC-teleSUR) -- Senior coordinator of the United Nations Cholera Response mission in Haiti, Pedro Medrano, said Monday that the epidemic plaguing the country should not be forgotten in order to avoid future fatalities.

In an interview with Prensa Latina, Medrano expressed that one of the biggest concerns is that thousands of Haitian people will be pushed into the background given the amount of worldwide emergencies.

While Medrano confirmed that the epidemic has decreased since beginning in 2010, there is still a high rate of new infections and the risk of death high when the necessary treatment is lacking.

"In 2014 there were some 28,500 new cases, in any other country in the world that figure would be a national tragedy and would mobilize the whole society", said Medrano. Medrano, a Chilean official, was appointed to the position in August 2013.

UN data indicates that more 700,000 cases and 8,600 fatalities have been caused by the cholera epidemic in Haiti. Sixty thousand new cases were reported in 2013.

The cholera epidemic in Haiti is the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Since the outbreak, evidence strongly suggests that UN troops from Nepal were the source of the cholera epidemic.

Haiti continues to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake that resulted in tens of thousands dead and displaced.