Haiti: outbreak of cholera

(october 22,2010)

After the devastating earthquake that plunged Haiti into crisis in January this year, health and relief agencies feared the outbreak of contagious disease.

Two regions north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, Lower Artibonite and the Central Plateau, have been afflicted with the deadly diarrhea-causing disease, with as many as 1,500 people reported ill late Thursday. The United Kingdom Press Association (UKPA) reported that at a hospital in Saint Marc, located 55 miles north of the Port-au-Prince, doctors saw an influx of patients through the night and into the morning. One health care worker said the hospital had treated 476 people through the night.

According to NPR, the outbreak only arose in the past 48 hours. It is thought that overcrowding and poor sanitation are contributing to the outbreak. Many Haitians living in Port-au-Prince had fled the city after the earthquake, although it is thought that there are still about one million Haitians living in unsanitary tent cities in the capital.

At least 142 people have died in rural central Haiti.

Meanwhile, there were reports that the disease had already spread to other parts of the country still reeling from the Jan. 12 devastating earthquake. So far, more than 100 people have died and more than 1,000 people have been hospitalized in the lower Artibonite region in recent days.

The outbreak is Haiti's first cholera epidemic in a century, the World Health Organization said. There are more than 1,500 reported cases of people with symptoms of severe diarrhea and vomiting in the rural area north of Port-au-Prince