Cholera Outbreak Kills 142 in Haiti

At least 142 people have died in a cholera outbreak in Haiti, and aid groups are rushing to combat the country's deadliest health problem since its devastating earthquake in January. Doctors and healthcare workers in Haiti struggled on Friday to stem a suspected cholera outbreak as a hospital in this central port town swelled with patients.

At a hospital in Saint Marc, located 55 miles north of the Port-au-Prince, doctors saw an influx of patients through the night and into the morning. One health care worker said the hospital had treated 476 people through the night.

Meanwhile, there were reports that the disease had already spread to other parts of the country still reeling from the Jan. 12 devastating earthquake. So far, more than 100 people have died and more than 1,000 people have been hospitalized in the lower Artibonite region in recent days.

The outbreak is Haiti's first cholera epidemic in a century, the World Health Organization said. There are more than 1,500 reported cases of people with symptoms of severe diarrhea and vomiting in the rural area north of Port-au-Prince