Hurricane Matthew sparked horrific cholera outbreak in Haiti, days after it slammed the country and now the situation is worsening.
The United Nations is alarmed over a possible situation of cholera outbreak in Haiti, as the number of disease cases continue to rise.
Cholera is an infectious disease that spreads through water supplies and causes diarrhea in patients, leading to severe dehydration and subsequent death of patients. In some cases, the infection kills a patient within a few hours if left untreated.
The worsening cholera happens as the death toll due to disastrous Hurricane Matthew where 877 people have already died in the troubled Caribbean nation, while many are still missing.
Based on the latest report of Haitian authorities, cholera disease has killed 13 people, mostly in the southwest part of the nation. Among all parts of the nation, the southwest villages had suffered the worst blow from the catastrophic Category 4 hurricane.
Of the total number, six casualties were reported in Randel, an isolated town set in the mountains in the heart of the Tiburon peninsula.
Seven other people were said to have died in Anse-d’Ainault, a town located on the western coast of the country.
Cholera was believed, although not proven yet, to have been carried inadvertently to the Caribbean nation by UN peacekeepers in the aftermath of the major earthquake that left the country in ruins in 2010. Since then, hundreds of thousands people suffered from the disease with over 9,000 of them eventually dying.
According to Central Emergency Response Fund of the United Nations, some 240 have died of Cholera in the year 2016.
After Hurricane Matthew left a vast damage of the country, the major concern for Haitian authorities is that poor sanitary conditions which have been deteriorated by complete destruction of critical infrastructure such as water supplies, would cause the rapid spread of the disease.
“People have started dying,” Eli Pierre Celestin of the state health ministry said.
According to official data, a total of 62 people were diagnosed with cholera in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Celestin noted that outbreaks have been registered in Port-a-Piment and Les Anglais which are located in the southwestern tip of the peninsula.