UN revises Haiti cholera estimates

Haiti's deadly cholera epidemic is spreading faster than originally estimated and could result in hundreds of thousands of cases, a senior UN official has said. The disease has killed about 1,400 people since it first appeared in mid-October. But Nigel Fisher, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, said on Tuesday that the real death toll might be "closer to two thousand than one" because of lack of data from remote areas, and the number of cases 60,000-70,000 instead of the official figure of about 50,000. Fisher said experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) were now revising their estimate that the disease would cause 200,000 cases within six months. "They are now revising that to 200,000 in closer to a three-month period. So this epidemic is moving faster," he said, adding that it was now present in all 10 of Haiti's provinces. "It's going to spread." "The medical specialists all say that this cholera epidemic will continue through months and maybe a year at least, that we will see literally hundreds of thousands of cases," Fisher said. Fisher said UN and other aid organizations needed to "significantly ratchet up" their response, including going through faith groups to distribute chlorine tablets to purify water, and increasing the number of treatment centers.