Dozens dead in Haiti from suspected cholera outbreak

Hundreds of people received treatment in the car park of a hospital in Saint-Marc

A suspected outbreak of cholera has killed at least 135 people in central Haiti, officials have said. The director-general of the health department, Dr Gabriel Thimote, said he was awaiting laboratory test results to confirm cholera was the cause. The victims suffered diarrhoea, acute fever and vomiting. More than 1,500 people were infected, officials said. The outbreak is centred in the Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, north of the capital Port-au-Prince. Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by a bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food. The source of contamination is usually the faeces of infected people. It causes diarrhoea and vomiting leading to severe dehydration, and can kill quickly if left untreated. It is easily treated though rehydration and antibiotics, however.Dr Thimote told the Reuters news agency that of the 15 specimens so far tested, 13 led him to believe there was a cholera outbreak.

Health Minister Alex Larsen also said he believed it was cholera. Dr Thimote said the worst-affected areas were Douin, Marchand Dessalines and areas around Saint-Marc, about 100km (60 miles) north of Port-au-Prince. Local hospitals were "overwhelmed", and a number of people were being evacuated to clinics in other areas, he added. At one point on Thursday, hundreds of people lay in the car park of St Nicholas hospital in Saint-Marc, with intravenous drips in their arms to treat dehydration, until it began to rain and they were rushed inside. Some patients said they drank water from a public canal, while others said they bought purified water. "I ran to the bathroom four times last night vomiting," 70-year-old Belismene Jean Baptiste told the Associated Press.

The Pan American Health Organization (Paho) had sent two teams to the south of Artibonite, near Saint-Marc, a doctor with Paho told the BBC. Pending the final test results, officials from Paho and the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) attributed the deaths to "acute diarrhoea". They said they were concerned by the severity of the outbreak and the high number of reported deaths. "Nothing can be verified at the moment. We have no numbers, no epidemiological data," said Dr Michel Thieren of Paho. The symptoms could be associated with a number of diseases, he added. The victims range in age, but the young and the elderly appear to be the most affected. There were fears of a cholera outbreak in the aftermath of January's devastating earthquake, which killed some 250,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Many people are still living in makeshift camps with unsanitary conditions and little access to clean drinking water, but there were no outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The Artibonite department was not badly damaged in the earthquake but thousands of people who lost their homes have moved into camps or are living with relatives there. "We have been afraid of this since the earthquake," said Robin Mahfood, president of Food for the Poor, which was preparing to airlift donations of antibiotics, oral dehydration salts and other supplies.