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UN appeals for USD 164mn for Haiti

13 November 2010 02:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United Nations has made an emergency appeal for USD 164 million to fight the cholera outbreak which has killed at least 800 people in Haiti so far, APA reports quoting Press TV.

Speaking at a news conference in Geneva on Friday, Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian office, said it was in urgent need of funds "otherwise all our efforts can be outrun by the epidemic."

She said the UN and non-governmental organizations were badly in need of money to avail the service of additional doctors, and to provide medicine and water-purification equipment to treat an estimated 200,000 people who are at risk of contracting the deadly disease.

Health officials in the quake-hit impoverished country are fighting to contain the epidemic that has infected more than 10,000 people, leaving them in need of urgent medical attention in five of Haiti’s ten districts.

Reports quoting Haiti’s Health Ministry said more than 80 people had died since Thursday across the country.

The contagious disease that sickened hundreds of people in the Lower Artibonite region last month with the intestinal infection caused due to the consumption of contaminated water and food spread to the north, northeast and northwestern parts of the country later.

Artibonite was the worst-affected with 450 people dead and more than 7,300 others infected since cholera was first diagnosed on October 19.

Overall, 200,000 people need treatment for symptoms ranging from mild diarrhea to severe dehydration, the global body said.