Haiti’s cholera outbreak slowed on Monday, but fear shot through squalid tent camps where hundreds of thousands of quake refugees remain stuck, as the UN warned the epidemic could fester for years.
The disease that emerged last week in the first cases for a century has killed 259 people, though Haitian officials express confidence the outbreak is contained, with six deaths on Monday over the first toll of 135 on Thursday.
Gabriel Thimote, director-general of Haiti’s public health ministry, said however the overall number of infections had risen from 3,115 to 3,342 over the past 24 hours, mainly along the Artibonite River north of the capital — thought to be the source of the epidemic.
STRONG FOOTHOLD
The UN, quickly tempering such optimism, warned however that cholera, which can kill with alarming haste, dangerously dehydrating the body in a matter of hours, now has a strong foothold in this desperately poor country.
The enormous January earthquake that cost the lives of more than 250,000 people also left another 1.3 million homeless in the desperately unsanitary tent cities.
The improvised living finds open pools of human waste near where the displaced bathe, do laundry and share meals in close quarters.
Meanwhile, Haiti received some good news on Monday as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced plans to build a multi-sports development center there.
‘LASTING LEGACY’
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the center would represent a “lasting legacy” as the island nation tries to recover from the January quake.
The Haiti center will be the second in the IOC’s “Sports For Hope Program,” following a US$10 million facility in Zambia that opened in May and caters for about 1,000 athletes per month training in 21 different sports.
Adams said the IOC executive board heard positive reports about the Zambia center, which boasts outdoor and indoor tracks, fields and other facilities as well as classrooms, a library and Internet lab.
“One of the main reasons we chose Haiti was because of the recent earthquake there, so it was decided that would be a good place to take our help and try to take sport development to the people of Haiti,” Adams said.
The IOC spokesman said the hope was that a permanent center would be more useful to rebuilding efforts than one-time aid donations.
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