Port-au-Prince, Haiti - A cholera epidemic in Haiti prompted the government to declare a health emergency across the country late Friday.
Along with international aid organizations, the government will take sweeping measures to halt the spread of the disease, which has killed at least 140 people.
The government has mobilized all its health institutions to fight the outbreak and called on citizens to take precautionary measures, Health Minister Alex Larson told Radio Metropole.
More than 1,500 people have fallen ill with cholera in the Lower Artibonite region, 80 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince, Haitian officials said.
The outbreak follows the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in the poorest country in the Americas and wrecked the capital. Even before the quake, the Caribbean country had been hit hard by hurricanes in recent years.
Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by bacteria transmitted through fecal contamination of water or food. The chief symptoms are diarrhoea and vomiting, which can quickly lead to severe, sometimes fatal dehydration.
