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An eerie silence lingers over Hospital Universitaire de la Paix in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

Footsteps echo through empty hallways. The normal beeps and whirs of hospital equipment are absent. The organized chaos of a city emergency room is replaced by empty chairs strung with caution tape.

The stillness is pierced only by the occasional cry of a child, about two years old, lying on her belly in a crib in the hospital's pediatric unit. She is one of the only patients currently admitted in what is usually one of Haiti's largest, busiest hospitals.