If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti.

He is editor-in-chief of Health and Human Rights Journal. White and Todd McCormack co-founded Partners In Health. PIH helps patients living in poverty to obtain effective drugs to treat tuberculosis and AIDS.

He was appointed as United Nations Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Community-based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti on 28 December 2012. His work is the subject of Tracy Kidder's 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. He currently resides in Kigali Rwanda.