Updated on
Summary
A cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 250 people, the government said on Sunday, but it added the outbreak which has sickened more than 3,000 may be stabilizing with fewer deaths and new cases reported over the last 24 hours.There are 3,015 in the most affected region. This is the official count of lower Artibonite plus the Central Plateau and 253 dead, Director-General of Haiti's Health Department, told a news conference. Doctors attending to cholera patients in the countryside said the steady stream of sick has not let up. The epidemic is the second emergency to strike the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere this year. Despite the reports of a stabilizing trend in the cholera outbreak, foreign aid agencies were preparing for a possible worst-case scenario of the epidemic spreading across the country, including the densely populated capital. Experts see Port-au-Prince's sprawling, squalid slums and tent and tarpaulin camps housing some 1.3 million homeless quake survivors as vulnerable to the cholera, which is transmitted through contaminated water and food.
