Haiti cholera death toll hits 1,100: health officials

Health officials in Haiti announced 76 new cholera deaths Wednesday, pushing the toll to 1,100 since the disease first surfaced in the destitute Caribbean nation in late October.

Haiti's Health Ministry said that the number of people hospitalized grew by another 1,583, to a total of 18,382 since the outbreak began in this country also ravaged last year by a massive earthquake.

Officials have struggled to battle the disease, in a nation still shell-shocked by January's massive earthquake that killed 250,000 people and left 1.3 million people homeless.

Officials fear the cholera epidemic could spread like wildfire if it infiltrates squalid camps around the capital where hundreds of thousands of quake refugees live in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

As the number of dead and sickened patients mounted as the disease surfaced for the first time late Tuesday in the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

The illness has fanned unrest, and thousands of protesters earlier in the week went on the rampage in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, setting a police station ablaze and threatening to torch a UN compound before being broken up by gunfire and tear gas.

Many officials fear a return of violence ahead of planned November 28 elections.

(c) 2010 AFP