Cholera Epidemic Haiti is a South Asian Strain

While all eyes were on Sarah Palin's visit to Haiti this weekend, Dr. Jocelyne Pierre Louis, Director of Haiti's Department of Publi...

While all eyes were on Sarah Palin's visit to Haiti this weekend, Dr. Jocelyne Pierre Louis, Director of Haiti's Department of Public Health and Population (MSPP) predicted a new outbreak of the cholera epidemic, particularly in Port-au-Prince and the Metropolitan Region due to the unsanitary conditions in the city, according to Haitilibre.

Haitilibre alerted us to this warning through social networking on Facebook and the Huffington Post. Pierre Louis warns that riots and demonstrations in Port-au-Prince resulted in the destruction of portable toilets and garbage bins, scattering feces and waste in the streets surrounding IDP camps in the central city. The camps at Champs de Mars are especially vulnerable and residents are urged to go immediately to Cholera Treatment Centers (CTC) located in the hospitals of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Hospital of the State University of Haiti (HUEH) at the first sign of diarrhea.

Since the outbreak began on October 19 almost 100,000 (97,595) people have been infected and 2,193 have died. Numbers are lagging because the last report from the MSSP was December 6 and it is believed that there is gross under-reporting of the numbers in rural and inaccessible regions