Morning Briefing

"A mentally ill man who bathed in and drank from a contaminated river most likely was the first person to be infected" with cholera in the outbreak that began in Haiti in October 2010, researchers from Partners in Health said in a study published Monday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (1/9). "'This patient's case is the first in the community's collective memory to have had symptoms that are recognizable, in retrospect, to be those of cholera,' according to the study," CNN's "The Chart" notes, adding, "There is no lab method to confirm that this was the first patient to start the epidemic, wrote the authors" (Park, 1/9).