Cholera Death Toll Rises in Haiti
- 14 years ago
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Doctors and medical workers on the outskirts of the Haitian capital Port au Prince are preparing for the worst.
Cholera has claimed more than 900 lives across the country, with the disease present in six of the country's ten provinces.
At least 27 people have died from cholera in Port au Prince, but there are fears the number of patients will increase in coming days.
[Dr. Francois Servranckx, Doctors Without Borders]:
"Here in Port-au-Prince, the number of cases are still increasing in our different facilities. We work in eight different places. It's not doubling everyday anymore like it was a couple of days (ago), but it is still a pretty significant increase. We are talking about more than one thousand patients being treated in a week, basically."
The government and aid partners are fighting to prevent the disease from spreading any further, through crowded city slums and tent camps that house more than 1.3 million earthquake survivors.
The U.N warned on Friday up to 200-thousand Haitians could contract cholera as the disease spreads.
The outbreak began over three weeks ago, with the country having all the classic risk factors for the disease - overcrowded camps, a scarcity of safe drinking water and poor waste disposal.
U.N officials say the response so far has been swift and effective in preventing deaths, but they say many more relief supplies and medical personnel are urgently needed, with estimates that it will cost $164 million to combat the epidemic.
Doctors and medical workers on the outskirts of the Haitian capital Port au Prince are preparing for the worst.
Cholera has claimed more than 900 lives across the country, with the disease present in six of the country's ten provinces.
At least 27 people have died from cholera in Port au Prince, but there are fears the number of patients will increase in coming days.
[Dr. Francois Servranckx, Doctors Without Borders]:
"Here in Port-au-Prince, the number of cases are still increasing in our different facilities. We work in eight different places. It's not doubling everyday anymore like it was a couple of days (ago), but it is still a pretty significant increase. We are talking about more than one thousand patients being treated in a week, basically."
The government and aid partners are fighting to prevent the disease from spreading any further, through crowded city slums and tent camps that house more than 1.3 million earthquake survivors.
The U.N warned on Friday up to 200-thousand Haitians could contract cholera as the disease spreads.
The outbreak began over three weeks ago, with the country having all the classic risk factors for the disease - overcrowded camps, a scarcity of safe drinking water and poor waste disposal.
U.N officials say the response so far has been swift and effective in preventing deaths, but they say many more relief supplies and medical personnel are urgently needed, with estimates that it will cost $164 million to combat the epidemic.