Haiti cholera death toll rising

The Haitian government today released new figures on the country’s death toll from the outbreak of cholera.



Officials say the death toll has risen to 1,344 and that nearly 57,000 people have been hospitalised as a result of the water borne illness.



Health workers say the Haitian population lacks immunity to cholera and that medical workers lack experience treating the infection because the bacterium has not been detected on the island in more than a century.



Meanwhile, international health officials have predicted that the scale of the epidemic will exceed initial estimates of 200,000 over coming months.