Haiti's health ministry said Tuesday that the first confirmed case of Cholera has been reported in the country's capital city of Port-Au-Prince, where hundreds of thousands of people are still living in make-shift camps after the devastating January earthquake.
The announcement has prompted fears that the water-borne disease may soon spread across the the crowded, squalid camps in the capital city in wake of the recent floods triggered by Hurricane Tomas that battered the country last week.
Since the Cholera outbreak was first reported late last month in the Artibonite region north of Port-Au-Prince, the disease has already killed at least 583 people in Haiti. An estimated 9,000 more infected with the disease are undergoing medical treatment across the country's ten regions.
The health ministry said Tuesday that a 3-year-old boy was the first confirmed case of Cholera in Port-Au-Prince. The ministry added that the boy was infected by the disease despite having no contact with anyone from the affected Artibonite region.
The deadly cholera outbreak comes at a time when international efforts are progressing to rebuild the impoverished country after the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed 217,000 people and caused damages estimated between $8 billion and $14 billion.
Official estimates indicate the quake left at least 1.5 million people homeless across Haiti, mostly in the capital Port-au-Prince. An estimated half-a-million homeless currently live outside in improvised camps in the capital city.
International donors have since pledged $9.9 billion in funding over the next three years and beyond for the reconstruction of earthquake-devastated Haiti, which is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
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