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Cholera epidemic could kill 10,000

The cholera epidemic in Haiti could kill 10,000 people and cause 200,000 infections in the coming year, a doctor with the Pan-American Health Organisation said.

"Our projections show that we could have around 200,000 cases of infection in Haiti over the next six to 12 months," said Ciro Ugarte.

Envisioning a "worst-case scenario," Ugarte said that the fatality rate would be 4% - 5%. "We may have 10,000 dead," he said.

Haiti's health ministry said that 1,100 people have died since cholera was first detected in the nation in late October 2010. The number of people hospitalised has grown to 18,382.

Health officials fear the cholera epidemic could spread like wildfire if it infiltrates Haiti's squalid refugee camps around the capital where hundreds of thousands of earthquake refugees live in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

The cholera outbreak -the first in half a century in the impoverished Caribbean nation is bringing new chaos to Haiti ravaged in a January 2010 quake, which killed 250,000 people and left 1.3 million homeless.

(Sapa, November 2010)

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