Haiti cholera outbreak kills 150

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti's government and aid workers are fighting to contain a cholera epidemic that has killed over 150 people in the country's worst medical emergency since the Jan 12 earthquake.

The disease has affected over 1,500 people in the disaster-prone Caribbean nation. It is Haiti's first cholera outbreak for a century.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the government was very worried about the disease spreading to the quake survivors' camps in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The earthquake killed up to 300,000 people and injured thousands more.

The Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies were rushing doctors, medical supplies and clean water to Saint-Marc in the Artibonite region, the main outbreak zone north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

"Now we are making sure people are fully aware of precautionary measures they have to take to prevent contamination," said Haitian President Rene Preval.

Cholera usually comes from consuming water or food contaminated by cholera bacteria and is not likely to spread from person to person.

Health Minister Alex Larsen announced an emergency prevention program, urging the population to regularly wash their hands, not to eat raw vegetables, to boil all food and drinking water, and to avoid bathing in and drinking from rivers. Aid groups were sending medicines and clean water supplies to affected zones.