Haiti’s cholera outbreak has spread to the capital Port-au-Prince,
putting the lives of millions of homeless people at risk.
Health authorities said a
three-year-old boy who has not left the city in the last year had caught the
disease.
He was tested and treated after
being taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration, nausea, vomiting and
diarrhoea.
More than 100 suspected cases of
cholera among residents of the capital are being investigated.
The outbreak has already killed at
least 544 people in other areas of Haiti, according to health ministry
executive director Gabriel Timothee.
He said many of the patients in
hospital in Port-au-Prince are believed to have recently arrived from the
Artibonite Valley, an agricultural area where more than 6,400 of Haiti’s known
8,138 cases have been recorded.
The water-borne disease had never
been reported in Haiti before its appearance last month.
Officials are concerned that floods
triggered by Hurricane Tomas last week could exacerbate the spread of the
disease, which is transmitted through the consumption of faecal matter
contained in contaminated water or food.
The storm severely affected the
temporary camps set up for more than one million refugees after the devastating
earthquake in January.
Dozens of charities and
humanitarian groups are still based in Haiti and have been teaching residents
of the camps about measures to prevent cholera spreading.
Standing water, mud, lack of
rubbish collection and limited sanitation availability make the camps
especially susceptible.
Public health experts have called
for an investigation into the origin of the outbreak.
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