Outbreak of suspected cholera hits Haiti | WPN World People News

Nearly 140 people have died in central Haiti in an outbreak of suspected cholera, Haitian health officials said on Thursday as they faced the country's biggest medical crisis since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

U.N. officials said Haitian health authorities had informed the World Health Organization of 138 deaths and 1,526 cases so far in the outbreak centered on the Lower Artibonite region, north of the capital Port-au-Prince. Cases were also reported in the Central Plateau area.

Local hospitals were overwhelmed with patients suffering acute diarrhea, with the victims dying from rapid dehydration, sometimes in hours, the Haitian officials said.

Medical teams from the huge international relief effort that has been helping Haiti since the Jan. 12 disaster deployed to the outbreak area around the town of Saint-Marc in Haiti's central farming region that received many quake survivors.

But the WHO and U.N. could not yet confirm cholera as the cause, while they awaited the final results of laboratory tests on samples taken from the dead and the sick, the U.N. humanitarian spokesperson in Haiti, Imogen Wall, told Reuters.

Earlier, Haitian Health Department Director General Dr. Gabriel Thimote and Health Minister Alex Larsen said initial testing indicated cholera, even though Haiti did not have a history of recent outbreaks of the lethal disease.

"Of the 15 specimens tested, 13 led us to believe it's cholera," Thimote said.

Cholera is an acute disease transmitted through contaminated water and food that causes watery diarrhea and severe dehydration and can kill within hours if not treated.

The outbreak was the most serious health emergency to affect the poor Caribbean country since a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people and injured many more, mostly in the capital.

Pending the final test results, officials from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) were attributing the deaths to "acute diarrhea."

"It's the severity of the outbreak that preoccupies us, and then the unconfirmed but reported high number of dead ... all of that is being investigated," Dr. Michel Thieren, PAHO's senior program managing officer in Haiti, told Reuters.

Thimote said the victims ranged in age, but the young and the elderly appeared to be the most affected, he added.

The Jan. 12 earthquake left about 1.5 million homeless survivors living in crowded tent and tarpaulin camps in and around Port-au-Prince, but despite initial fears of epidemics, a massive international relief effort has prevented any serious outbreaks of infectious diseases in the wrecked capital.

No victims from the diarrhea outbreak have been reported in Port-au-Prince. The worst-affected areas were Douin, Marchand Dessalines and zones around Saint-Marc in the Artibonite region, Thimote said.

Experts say up to 80 percent of cholera cases can be successfully treated with oral rehydration salts. Safe water and sanitation is critical in reducing the impact of cholera and other waterborne diseases.