Red Cross volunteers outside a cholera observation center.
Haiti, Latin America: Week in Review

Death Toll In Haiti Cholera Outbreak Hits 1,000; First Case Detected in Dominican Republic

November 17, 2010 By Staff

Red Cross volunteers outside a cholera observation center.

Today in Latin America

Top Story — The death toll in Haiti’s cholera outbreak passed 1,000, three weeks after the disease was first detected, as riots hit Haiti’s second-largest city Monday.

The death toll hit 1,034 with about 16,800 people hospitalized since the disease surfaced in late October, according to the health ministry.

Thick smoke covered the sky in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, which began around six in the morning. Rioters set ablaze a police station and threatened to burn the United Nations compound in the city, while two Haitians died in the riots, including one shot by a peacekeeper.

U.N. soldiers and Haitian police fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse at least 1,000 protesters at the compound, local radio reported. Six U.N. peacekeepers were also injured in a second protest Monday in the central city of Hinche.

The first case of cholera was reported Monday in the Dominican Republic, which shares half the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The patient is a Haitian migrant who had recently returned to the Dominican Republic after a 12-day vacation.

The case was reported in Higuey, near the tourist hotspot of Punta Cana. The news alarmed Dominicans, but so far no locally originated cholera cases have been reported.

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Image: British Red Cross @ Flickr.

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1 Comment

A Person says:

This is so sad. No one deserves this. Especially not Haiti. They already went through the earthquake and now they have to go through this.

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