Several medical teams reported increased cases of diarrhea in the last few days in Haiti, Paul Garwood, a spokesman for the UN World Health Organisation, said in Geneva. There were also reported cases of measles and tetanus, many of them in the makeshift camps that have sprung up in the parks and open spaces of the devastated capital Port-au-Prince, Garwood said.
Haiti's government and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) are to launch a vaccination program next week, with just 58 percent of children below the age of one having been vaccinated against the diseases before the quake, he said. The 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 decimated Haiti's already meagre health system, creating conditions for disease to thrive in cramped refugee camps.
Only one person in two among the Haitian population of more than nine million people has access to clean drinking water, and only 19 percent have decent sanitation. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said separately that it had sent eight mobile X-ray units to Haiti to help with an estimated 250,000 people injured in the quake.