Haiti cholera toll tops 200, five cases in capital - Yahoo! NewsThe death toll from a cholera epidemic in Haiti topped 200 on Saturday and fears of it propagating in the crowded, earthquake-ravaged capital increased after five cases were detected in the city.
U.N. officials stressed that the five cases, the first confirmed in the capital since the epidemic started, were people who had become infected in the main outbreak zone of Artibonite north of Port-au-Prince and had subsequently traveled to the city where they fell sick.
"They were very quickly diagnosed and isolated," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Imogen Wall told Reuters, citing information from Haitian health authorities. "This is not a new location of infection."
But prevention measures and surveillance were being increased in Port-au-Prince, with its squalid sprawling slums and about 1.3 million survivors of the January 12 earthquake packed into tent and tarpaulin camps. All are highly vulnerable to a virulent diarrheal disease like cholera.