Cholera now spreading in Haiti capital say officials

A CHOLERA outbreak has spread into Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, a city of almost three million people, nearly half living in tent camps for the homeless after the 12 January earthquake.

Yesterday health authorities said tests confirmed a three-year-old boy from one such camp who hadn't been out of the city had caught the disease. More than 100 other suspected cholera cases among city residents are being tested.

At least 544 people have died in the epidemic, health ministry official Gabriel Timothee said.

The boy from Route Batiment camp was tested after being taken to hospital with dehydration, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. He was treated with oral rehydration, IV fluids and antibiotics before being released.

His family had not travelled in more than a year or had contact with anyone from the Artibonite Valley, where cholera was first registered last month. It has now spread to half of Haiti's ten administrative regions, with 200 in hospital in the capital.

It's the first recorded outbreak of cholera in Haiti's history.