A United Nations source has told Al Jazeera that the severe diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration that has killed at least 138 people and infected more than 1,500 others in Haiti in the last two days was caused by cholera.
"The ministry of health has confirmed to us that it is cholera," Imogen Wall of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a car park outside St Nicholas hospital in the port city of Saint Marc with drips in their arms for rehydration on Thursday.
"The ministry of health has confirmed to us that it is cholera," Imogen Wall of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Hundreds of patients lay on blankets in a car park outside St Nicholas hospital in the port city of Saint Marc with drips in their arms for rehydration on Thursday.
Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker, reporting from outside a hospital where about 1,400 people were seeking treatment, described the scene as "absolutely horrific".- "There were streams of patients arriving all the time being driven in from remote villages in the region, with severe cases of dehydration, acute diarrhoea and vomiting.
- "We're hearing of cases all around the region we are in now. It's a rural region, the farming heartland of Haiti. There is a lot of poverty, high rates of unemployment, and there is very little drinking water available."
- Al Jazeera's Walker said the authorities' priority was to prevent the disease from spreading into camps where thousands of people left homeless by January's devastating earthquake are sheltering.
- More than 250,000 people were killed in the earthquake and another 1.2 million were left homeless.
- The Lower Artibonite region, where the outbreak is centred, did not experience significant damage in the quake but has absorbed thousands of refugees from the capital Port-au-Prince, 70km south of Saint Marc.
- Aid groups have voiced concern for months that any outbreak of disease could spread rapidly in the country due to the unsanitary conditions in the makeshift camps housing the homeless, with little access to clean water.
- Wall said the UN's priority was to provide basic sanitation to help people get rehydrated.
Relief organisations were mobilising to ship medicine, water filtration units and other relief supplies to the Artibonite region.Cholera is transmitted by water but also by food that has been in contact with unclean water contaminated by cholera bacteria.
- It causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to dehydration. The disease is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics, but with a short incubation period, it can be fatal if not treated in time.
- The World Health Organisation defines cholera as "an extremely virulent disease. It affects both children and adults and can kill within hours".
- The impoverished Caribbean nation has also been hit in recent days by severe flooding, adding to the misery of those struggling to survive in the scores of tent cities now dotting the country.
- Reconstruction has barely begun despite billions of dollars pledged for Haiti in the wake of the disaster. Less than 15 per cent of money promised at a UN donor's conference in March has been delivered.
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