The
cholera outbreak in Haiti
has spread across the border to the Dominican Republic and that nation
has issued a maximum health alert, its health ministry said.
The first
confirmed case is a 32-year-old Haitian construction worker who returned to the
Dominican Republic
last Friday with symptoms of the intestinal illness, the health ministry said
Tuesday night.
Wilmo
Louwes went back to Haiti
October 31 to take money home, according to the El Nacional newspaper.
Louwes
came back Friday with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea and was hospitalized in
Higuey, near the eastern resort town of Punta
Cana. He was in stable condition and will probably be
released from the hospital Wednesday, the newspaper quoted Health Minister
Bautista Rojas Gomez as saying.
Two other
suspected cases turned out to be negative, the health ministry said.
The
cholera outbreak confirmed last month in northwest Haiti
has killed 1,110 people, and 18,383 people have been hospitalized with the
disease, according to Haiti’s
health ministry.
As cases
of cholera spread throughout Haiti,
violent clashes erupted in the northern part of the country as angry
demonstrators accused United Nations peacekeepers of starting the outbreak.
Burning
tires and cars sent thick black smoke across Cap Haitien, where the government appeared to
have lost control.
Protesters
set a police station ablaze and commercial flights were suspended to Haiti’s
second-largest city. At least one protester was killed by a peacekeeper acting
in self-defense, the United Nations said.
Aid
agencies appealed for calm and said the protests were hampering efforts to
reach the sickened.
Aid
workers have suspended clean water projects to slum areas, and canceled flights
to deliver soap and other supplies to affected areas, a statement from aid
agencies said.
Supplies
in Cap Haitien
are running out and the medical staff is overwhelmed as cholera mortality
numbers climb, said Nigel Fisher, coordinator for humanitarian action for the
U.N.
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