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The cholera epidemic affecting Haiti looks set to be far worse than officials had thought, experts fear.
Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.
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In the three months between October and December 2010, about 150,000 people in Haiti contracted cholera and about 3,500 died.
Around this time, the United Nations projected that the total number infected would likely rise to 400,000.
But researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, say this is a gross underestimate.
They believe the toll could reach 779,000, with 11,100 deaths by the end of November 2011.
Dr Sanjay Basu and colleagues reached their figures using data from Haiti's ministry of health.
They say the UN estimates were "crude" and based on "a simple assumption" that the disease would infect a set portion (2-4%) of Haiti's 10 million population.
Read more at:
.
Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.
(snipped)
In the three months between October and December 2010, about 150,000 people in Haiti contracted cholera and about 3,500 died.
Around this time, the United Nations projected that the total number infected would likely rise to 400,000.
But researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, say this is a gross underestimate.
They believe the toll could reach 779,000, with 11,100 deaths by the end of November 2011.
Dr Sanjay Basu and colleagues reached their figures using data from Haiti's ministry of health.
They say the UN estimates were "crude" and based on "a simple assumption" that the disease would infect a set portion (2-4%) of Haiti's 10 million population.
Read more at:
.