Cholera epidemic continues to claim lives in Haiti

The body of a person whose death was possibly caused by cholera lies inside a building yesterday in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Haitian health officials said at least 1,344 people have died from a worsening cholera epidemic that has ravaged the country since mid-October. Port-au-Prince is seen as being particularly at risk of widespread infection because of the crowded and unsanitary conditions endured by tens of thousands of people sheltering in squalid, makeshift tent cities after January's devastating earthquake. The city has seen 77 cholera deaths, officials said Photograph: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

A young woman suffering cholera symptoms is carried by a relative to St Catherine hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders, in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince last Friday. Thousands of people have been hospitalised for cholera across Haiti with symptoms including serious diarrhea, vomiting and fever Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

A woman suffering from cholera-like symptoms is brought to St Catherine hospital in Cite Soleil, the biggest slum on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, yesterday. The pump installed in Cite Soleil spews out clear but unprocessed water. Residents must add chlorine themselves to ward off cholera. The problem is such chemicals are expensive, so most of the estimated 300,000 inhabitants of this shanty town on the northern rim of the capital take a risk every time they drink Photograph: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

A Haitian with symptoms of cholera is transported in a wheelbarrow in the slums of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince. The UN-led international response to Haiti's cholera epidemic is "inadequate" and woefully short of funding, aid groups, including the UN humanitarian agency, said last Friday Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

A woman suffering cholera symptoms is pushed in a wheelbarrow to St Catherine hospital, in the Cite Soleil slum on Sunday Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/AP

A child with cholera symptoms arrives to receive treatment at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince on Sunday Photograph: Kena Betancur/Reuters

People suffering cholera symptoms rest on stretchers as they crowd the entrance of a public hospital in Limbe village near Cap Haitian yesterday Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

A woman with symptoms of cholera, wearing a T-shirt with a picture of presidential candidate Charles Henry Baker, receives treatment at hospital yesterday. Haiti will hold elections on Sunday. Four presidential candidates have called for a delay in elections because of the cholera outbreak Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/AP

Nurse Stacy Brown helps Elisa Osman breastfeed her child, Schider Osman, because she is too weak to hold the baby. Elisa is being treated for cholera in a Samaritan's Purse cholera treatment facility in Cabaret Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Cholera patients are treated in Saint-Nicolas hospital last week. Doctors Without Borders has set up a centre at the hospital to care for them Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Members of a Haitian Ministry of Health's body collection team carry the body of a woman who neighbours said exhibited cholera symptoms before she died at home in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. The team was collecting bodies for disposal Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A relative of Stephanie Sanbronce, 17, who died of cholera, reacts as the body collection team (unseen) remove her body from her house in Port-au-Prince on Saturday Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

A man pulls the body of his father-in-law, who died of cholera, to the cemetery after he found him dead in the street near his home in Cap Haitian last Friday Photograph: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP

The bodies of four cholera victims lie on stretchers at the St Therese hospital in Hinche last week Photograph: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

The body of a man lying in the street in La Saline Boulevard, in downtown Port-au-Prince last week Photograph: Andres Martinez Casares/EPA

A health worker is disinfected in Port-au-Prince yesterday Photograph: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

A woman collects water from the ground to clean a table to sell meat from in downtown Port-au-Prince yesterday. Aid supplies to combat the cholera epidemic are now flowing into the country's northern regions after protests by Haitians blaming UN troops for the outbreak, humanitarian groups said on Sunday Photograph: Kena Betancur/Reuters

UN peacekeepers from Brazil are seen through a window glass as they patrol on vehicles in Cap Haitian yesterday. The UN have been a target of blame for the outbreak after a rumour that farmers saw waste from a UN peacekeeping base flow into a river. Within days of the rumour, hundreds of people downstream had died from cholera Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP