Haiti: Cholera outbreak creeps closer to capital Port-au-Prince

(October 23, 2010)


In Haiti at least 208 people had died and 2,674 others were infected in an outbreak mostly centered in the Artibonite region north of the capital.

Health officials said a spreading cholera outbreak in rural Haiti threatened to outpace aid groups as they stepped up efforts Saturday hoping to keep the disease from reaching the squalid camps of earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.

At least five people who traveled from the Artibonite region to Port-au-Prince on Saturday tested positive for cholera once they arrived in the capital, where they are being treated, she said. Aguirre said they are not considered the first cholera cases of Port-au-Prince because officials believe the people contracted the disease in Artibonite.

But the number of cases in towns near Port-au-Prince were rising, and officials worried the next target will be hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by January's devastating quake and now living in camps across the capital.