Scores die in suspected cholera outbreak in Haiti

An outbreak of severe diarrhoea has killed at least 135 people in rural central Haiti and sickened hundreds more who overwhelmed a crowded hospital seeking treatment.

Health workers suspect the disease is cholera, but are awaiting tests.

Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a car park outside St Nicholas hospital in the port city of St Marc with IVs in their arms for rehydration. As rain began to fall in the afternoon, nurses rushed to carry them inside.

Doctors were testing for cholera, typhoid and other illnesses in the Caribbean nation’s deadliest outbreak since a January earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people.

Catherine Huck, deputy country director for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said the Caribbean nation’s health ministry had recorded 135 deaths and more than 1,000 infected people.

“What we know is that people have diarrhoea, and they are vomiting, and (they) can go quickly if they are not seen in time,” Ms Huck said. She said doctors were still awaiting lab results to pinpoint the disease.

The president of the Haitian Medical Association, Claude Surena, said the cause appeared to be cholera, but added that had not been confirmed by the government.

“The concern is that it could go from one place to another place, and it could affect more people or move from one region to another one,” he said.

Cholera is a waterborne bacterial infection spread through contaminated water. It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death within hours. Treatment involves administering a salt and sugar-based rehydration serum.

The sick come from across the rural Artibonite region, which did not experience significant damage in the January 12 quake but has absorbed thousands of refugees from the devastated capital 45 miles south of St Marc.

Government figures list a total of 54 people dead and 619 ill, said Yolaine Surena, a co-ordinator for Haiti’s civil protection department.

Some patients said they drank water from a public canal, while others said they bought purified water. All complained of symptoms including fever, vomiting and severe diarrhoea.

“I ran to the bathroom four times last night vomiting,” said 70-year-old Belismene Jean Baptiste.

Trucks loaded with medical supplies including rehydration salts were to be sent from Port-au-Prince to the hospital, said Jessica DuPlessis, an Ocha spokeswoman. Doctors at the hospital said they also needed more personnel to handle the flood of patients.