Health officials on Sunday reported 64 new deaths in Haiti's worsening cholera epidemic, which has now claimed 1,250 lives and seen more than 20,000 people treated in hospital.
The new health ministry figures, the latest since Friday, come one month after the outbreak was first detected north of the capital. It has now spread to Port-au-Prince, where hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors are living in squalid tent cities with poor sanitation.
The ministry said 64 people have died in Port-au-Prince, including 20 children under age five, but the hardest-hit region remained Artibonite, where the first cases were detected in October.
Efforts to contain the cholera — which can lead to diarrhea and dehydration that can kill within hours if untreated — have been hampered in recent days due to rioting in the capital, where hundreds of people clashed with UN troops whom they blame for importing the disease.
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