A spreading cholera outbreak in rural Haiti is threatening to outpace aid groups as they battle to prevent the disease from reaching the camps of earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.
Five cases of the disease have now been confirmed in the capital.
Health officials said today that 250 people had died and 2,674 others were infected in an outbreak mostly centred in the Artibonite region north of Port-au-Prince.
Officials are worried about the disease affecting hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by January’s devastating quake and now living in camps across the capital.
“If the epidemic makes its way to Port-au-Prince, where children and families are living in unsanitary, overcrowded camps, the results could be disastrous,” said Dr Estrella Serrano, World Vision’s emergency response health and nutrition manager.
Reports trickled in of patients seeking treatment in clinics closer to Port-au-Prince because the St Nicolas hospital in the seaside city of St Marc is overflowing, said Margaret Aguirre, an International Medical Corps spokeswoman.
Officials confirmed at least five cholera cases in Arcahaie, a town close to Port-au-Prince, and four cases in Limbe, a small northern municipality.
Ten cases were reported in Gonaives, the largest city in the Artibonite, according to Partners in Health, a US-based humanitarian group.
The sick included 50 inmates at a prison in Mirebalais, just north of Port-au-Prince, Health Ministry director Gabriel Thimothe said.
Agencies