Video: Haiti races to contain deadly cholera outbreak

  1. Transcript of: Haiti races to contain deadly cholera outbreak

    LESTER HOLT, anchor: It is a race against time. The government and international aid agencies are expanding efforts to contain an epidemic that has already killed 208 people and sickened more than 2600. Cholera is spread through contaminated food or water and is typically found in places where access to clean water is limited.

    Mr. ERICK LOSS (Aid Worker): The water they're drinking from the river is contaminated.

    HOLT: Most of the deaths have occurred in rural central Haiti . NBC producer Frank Thorp visited a hospital there.

    Mr. FRANK THORP: There are mothers holding their children on the floor in the hospital. People are sitting on chairs in the hallways attached to IV drips. There just aren't enough beds in the hospitals here to hold the amount of people that have cholera.

    HOLT: Experts predict the number of cases will rise. The fear is that the disease may reach Port-au-Prince, Haiti 's capital. Haiti is still struggling after the devastating earthquake in January killed 300,000 people and displaced over a million, many of them forced into makeshift camps like those we visited while covering the earthquake. An estimated 1.3 million people are still living in those camps. Officials say the crowded conditions make people especially vulnerable to cholera, and they're watching closely for any signs of the disease. And news services
updated 10/23/2010 7:44:07 PM ET 2010-10-23T23:44:07

Five cases of cholera have been detected in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, U.N. and Haitians officials said Saturday, raising concern over the spread of an epidemic that already has killed over 200 people and sickened 2,000.

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"We have confirmed five cases in Port-au-Prince ... they were very quickly diagnosed and isolated," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Imogen Wall told Reuters, citing information from Haitian health authorities. They were the first cases to be detected in the capital since the outbreak started.

Wall stressed the five patients had become infected in the main outbreak zone of Artibonite north of the capital and had subsequently traveled to the city where they fell ill.

"This is not a new location of infection," Wall said, adding surveillance had been increased in Port-au-Prince, where camps house 1.3 million survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The cholera outbreak has been centered in the central Artibonite region, but at least five cases were confirmed also in Arcahaie, a town closer to the quake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. Another four cases were reported in Limbe, a small northern municipality.



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Officials were worried about the consequences for the capital.





Horrific hospital conditions

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Image: A patient is helped outside St. Nicolas
Thony Belizaire  /  AFP - Getty Images
A patient is helped outside St. Nicolas Hospital in St. Marc, north of Port-au-Prince.





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Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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