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Haiti cholera toll tops 900 with six provinces affected
1 of 2. A Haitian resident holds his relative who is suffering from cholera at St-Catherine hospital in the slum of Cite-Soleil in Port-au-Prince November 12, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/St-Felix Evens
PORT-AU-PRINCE |
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The death toll from Haiti's cholera epidemic has reached more than 900 and the disease is present in six of the 10 provinces of the earthquake-battered Caribbean country, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
An update on the ministry website (www.mspp.gouv.ht) said as of November 12, there had been 917 deaths and more than 14,600 hospitalized cases since the outbreak began more than three weeks ago in the Western Hemisphere's poorest state.
The central rural province of Artibonite, the epicenter of the epidemic, remained the worst affected, accounting for nearly 600 of the total deaths. Other provinces affected were Center, Nord, Nord Ouest, Sud, and Ouest, where the capital Port-au-Prince is located.
The capital, which bore the brunt of destruction from the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, has recorded 27 deaths up to November 12. The government and its aid partners are fighting to prevent the disease spreading in crowded city slums and tent camps housing over 1.3 million homeless earthquake survivors.
The United Nations forecasts up to 200,000 Haitians could contract cholera as the outbreak extends across the country of nearly 10 million, and says $163.9 million in aid is needed over the next year to combat the epidemic.
Despite the cholera outbreak, which has stretched relief agencies and complicated the faltering U.N.-led recovery following the earthquake, presidential and legislative elections are scheduled to go ahead as planned on November 28.
(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
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17 January 2010 8:50PM
Mr. Obama, with hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the USA, your government would be a true world leader if it recruited and funded a large team of skilled people from that population to return home to help rebuild Haiti.
These individuals have a cultural understanding of their nation that nobody else has, and would provide fellow Haitians the pride and inspiration to turn that devastated country into a glowing example of what can be done when a people get together.
Otherwise, the Haitian repair effort will become a failed example of outsiders imposing their will without honoring or understanding much, if anything, about those who need the help.
Please Mr. Obama, assemble this special team of Haitians as quickly as possible.
Rudy Haugeneder
Victoria, BC, Canada
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