Cholera outbreak feared in rural Haiti— 135 dead and over 1,000 infected

Many afflicted have converged on St. Nicholas hospital in the seaside city of St. Marc, where hundreds of dehydrated patients lay on blankets in a parking lot with IVs in their arms as they awaited treatment.

Catherine Huck, deputy country director for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, confirmed that the Caribbean nation's health ministry had already recorded 135 deaths - and more than 1,000 infected people.

"What we know is that people have diarrhoea, and they are vomiting, and (they) can go quickly if they are not seen in time," Huck said, adding that doctors were still awaiting lab results.

Occurring in the rural Artibonite region, which is hosting thousands of quake refugees, the outbreak seemingly confirmed relief groups’ fears about the conditions of those homeless survivors currently living in tarp cities and other squalid settlements.

"We have been afraid of this since the earthquake," said Robin Mahfood, president of Food for the Poor, which was preparing to fly in donations of antibiotics, dehydration salts and other supplies.

Cholera is a waterborne bacterial infection spread through contaminated water. It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death within hours. Treatment involves administering a salt and sugar-based re-hydration serum.

No cholera outbreaks had been reported in Haiti for decades before the earthquake, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Haitian officials have been so far pointing to the lack of severe disease outbreaks as a quake response accomplishment.

With more than a million people left homeless by the disaster, experts are warning that disease could strike in the makeshift camps – where there is nowhere to safely put human waste and limited access to clean water.