Haiti’s health minister said a cholera outbreak in the capital was likely Health officials in Port-au-Prince have confirmed that the cholera epidemic has reached the Haitian capital.
A three-year-old boy has caught the disease, although he has had no contact with people from the area where the epidemic started, officials said.
More than 100 other suspected cases are being investigated in the city, which has feared an outbreak since October.
The health ministry says 544 people have died in Haiti’s outbreak, and 8,000 are being treated in hospitals.
Several cases were in fact confirmed in Port-au-Prince in the first few weeks of Haiti’s cholera outbreak.
All of those affected had recently arrived in the city from the Artibonite region, where the disease was first detected.
Many of the current patients with suspected cholera had also come to Port-au-Prince from elsewhere in Haiti, including the Artibonite Valley, a health ministry official told the AP news agency.
Health minister Ariel Henry said that a sizeable outbreak in Port-au-Prince now appeared likely.
“It’s coming,” Mr Henry told the AFP news agency.
He said two deaths in the city suspected to have been caused by cholera were also being probed by health officials.
The water-borne disease has already spread to half of Haiti’s 10 regions, and the number of those killed has risen by more than 100 in less than one week.
Authorities feared the outbreak could worsen after Hurricane Tomas brought heavy rains last week, which triggered mudslides and flooding.
The storm left 20 people dead, with 36 injured and 11 missing, officials said.
Aid agencies say the main concern is that the flooding could result in the spreading of cholera, with people lacking access to basic sanitation and forced to drink contaminated water.
The hurricane passed without destroying the tented camps in and around Port-au-Prince, which house about 1.3 million survivors of January’s earthquake.
Aid workers say those living in the tent cities have better access to toilets and clean drinking water than the residents of some of the capital’s long-standing slums, says the BBC’s Laura Trevelyan in Port-au-Prince.
But if more cases are confirmed, the epidemic could threaten an estimated 2.5 to 3 million people in Port-au-Prince.
Cholera itself causes diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to severe dehydration. It can kill quickly but is treated easily through rehydration and antibiotics.
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