Partners in Health, a Boston-based humanitarian group working in Haiti, reported that the cholera outbreak in Haiti that dates back to 2010 was ignited by a 28-year-old mentally ill man. 

The group reported the case Monday in a study it did on the outbreak and published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. David Walton, who co-authored the study with Dr. Louise Ivers, said the mentally ill man from the central town of Mirebalais, Haiti was the first person infected with the waterborne disease.

He said, though the man's family had access to clean water, his uncontrollable state went without treatment and he frequently bathed in and drank from a river into which the Meye River fed. The Meye is said to be the probable source of the epidemic. Walton expressed grief by citing this as an example of how mental health affects the overall well-being.

The mentally ill man developed acute diarrhea on October 12, 2010 and died 24 hours later at his home without medical attention.

The two people who prepared his body for burial the following day developed diarrhea in less than 48 hours.

The study further enlightens how globalization can spread such diseases to other parts of the world. Similar cholera cases were already found in the neighboring Dominican Republic, Miami, Florida and Boston, Massachusetts.

As to how the Meye River became the likely source of the disease, studies suggest that it was carried there by a United Nations peacekeeping battalion from Nepal, where the disease is prevalent.

Cholera in Haiti dates back to 2010, the same year the country was hit by an earthquake. Haiti president Michel Martelly commented on Monday that it will take quite a while for the country to fully recover.