Urgent action needed fight cholera in Haiti: aid group

Global and local health authorities are not doing enough to fight a cholera outbreak that continues to claim lives in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday.

"We are worried about the lack of support from the international community and the lack of action from health authorities in Haiti," Thierry Goffeau, head of the group's Haiti operations, told AFP.

Since the start of the epidemic in October 2010, 7,500 people have died from the disease that is spread through poor sanitation. This year alone, it has claimed at least 40 lives in the impoverished Caribbean nation that shares the Hispaniola island with the far wealthier Dominican Republic.

Doctors Without Borders has treated 9,800 cholera patients in special centers since early 2012, including 72 percent of cases in and around the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

But the group stresses that it has no intention to replace health authorities and is there to support them.

"We urge the international community and the World Health Organization to strengthen their support," Goffeau said.

(c) 2012 AFP