A cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 250 people, but the government has said the outbreak may be stabilising.
The accumulated deaths since the cholera outbreak began around a week ago in the earthquake-ravaged nation stood at 253, while total cases were 3,015, mostly in central rural regions straddling the Artibonite river.
Despite the reports of a stabilising trend, foreign aid agencies were preparing for a possible worst-case scenario of the epidemic spreading across the country, including the densely populated capital.
UN peacekeepers were erecting cholera treatment centres - structures large enough to treat 150 cases each - in the main outbreak region of Artibonite, in the overcrowded capital Port-au-Prince and in the Centre province.
The detection of five ‘imported’ cases in Port-au-Prince, involving patients who had travelled south to the city from the central outbreak zone, has raised fears of the virulent diarrheal disease spreading in the capital.
Experts see Port-au-Prince's sprawling, squalid slums and tent and tarpaulin camps housing some 1.3m homeless quake survivors as vulnerable to the cholera, which is transmitted through contaminated water and food.
‘We are planning for the worst-case scenario here ... we have to be ready for this,’ United Nations humanitarian spokeswoman in Haiti Imogen Wall told Reuters.
The Pan American Health Organization, the regional office of the World Health Organization, said cholera cases had been confirmed in Haiti's Artibonite and Centre provinces and in the Oest province, where the capital is located.
Suspected cases have also been detected in Nord and Sud provinces.
It is the worst medical emergency to strike the Caribbean nation since the earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and is also the first cholera epidemic in Haiti in a century.
Cholera, transmitted by contaminated water and food, can kill in hours if left untreated, through dehydration.
But it can be treated easily with oral rehydration salts or just a simple mix of water, sugar and salt.
