Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Haitian government confirms cholera is in Port-au-Prince

The government of Haiti has now confirmed that cholera has reached the capitol of Port-au-Prince. In a news conference televised last night, health officials say that the cholera outbreak is now a matter of national security.

A million people are still living in tent camps after the January earthquake, many of them use or live next to filthy water.

From the Daily Mail UK, we receive the latest news from Haiti.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders has reported more than 200 residents of Port-au-Prince with severe symptoms at their facilities alone over the last three days.

More than 70 other cholera cases had been confirmed among people living in the capital, but those people became infected while outside the capital.

The disease's move into the city was confirmed when a three-year-old boy from a tent camp near Cite Soleil was proved to have contracted cholera before October 31 without leaving the capital.

The hope against hope was that it an isolated incident, but two more cases have now been confirmed at the same hospital where the boy was treated.

Hundreds of people were already suspected of having cholera, suffering the disease's symptoms of fever and diarrhoea while lying in hospital beds or inside shacks lining the putrid waste canals of Cite Soleil, Martissant and other slums.

A confirmed case of cholera had never been seen in this Caribbean country before last month, when it suddenly killed several dozen people and spread across the agricultural heartland of the Artibonite Valley.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328321/Haiti-cholera-epidemic-spreads-capital-puts-million-risk.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz14tCalkCj

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