Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AP) — At least eight people have died from cholera, the Haitian government announced on Sunday, raising concerns that the disease could spread rapidly and evoking an epidemic that killed nearly 10,000 a decade ago sick memory.
The cases – the first reported death from cholera in three years – occurred in a community south of Port-au-Prince called Dekayet and in the gang-controlled seaside slum of Cite de Soleil, where thousands live in cramped, unsanitary conditions.
“Cholera is something that can spread very, very quickly,” warned Raúl Adrian, director-general of the Haitian Ministry of Health.
Food or water contaminated with cholera bacteria can cause severe diarrhea and dehydration, which can be fatal.
In a statement, the United Nations said it was working with the Haitian government to “respond urgently to this potential outbreak” and stressed the need to ensure that health teams have safe access to areas where cases have been reported.
The death comes as a lack of fuel and ongoing protests have left basic services across Haiti without access to basic services, including health care and clean water, key to helping fight cholera and keeping patients alive.
Haiti’s most powerful gangs continued to control the entrance to a major fuel terminal in the capital Port-au-Prince, leading to fuel shortages and soaring oil prices sparking widespread protests that paralyzed the country for more than two weeks.
Due to a lack of fuel and a growing number of roadblocks, water trucks are unable to travel to communities to provide drinking water to those who can afford it. It has also prompted some companies to temporarily suspend operations.
On Sunday, Caribbean Bottling said it could no longer produce or distribute drinking water as its diesel reserves were “completely depleted”, adding that the lack of this vital resource would affect “all sectors of society”.
Adrian said health officials were trying to visit communities reporting cholera, but his agency was also affected by fuel shortages, as he called for people to block gas stations and organize protests “with a good conscience.”
“It’s a real problem,” he said of how the country was effectively paralyzed. “We hope this doesn’t spread.”
Adrian pointed out that all the dead were unable to reach the hospital in time.
Haitian Health Minister Alex Larsen said people had the right to protest, but asked Haitians to allow drinking water supplies to communities cut off by roadblocks and protests.
“These areas have been without water for a long time and people are not drinking treated water,” he said, adding that cholera cases could spike again. “We’re asking people who can afford to add a little chlorine to the water.”
The latest cholera outbreak in Haiti sickened more than 850,000 people in a country of more than 11 million, the world’s worst preventable disease outbreak in recent years.
UN peacekeepers from Nepal have been blamed for introducing cholera into Haiti’s largest river through sewage in October 2010. The United Nations has since acknowledged that it played a role in the epidemic and that it was not doing enough to help fight it, but it did not say specifically that it introduced the disease.
Haiti was declared cholera-free by the World Health Organization only after it had no new cases for three consecutive years.
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Associated Press writer Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.