Cholera Outbreak Resurfaces in Holguin

HAVANA TIMES — Two more people have died in Cuba as a result of cholera, this time in the eastern provincial capital of Holguin, reported the Café Fuerte website.

According to the note, the victims are two women (42 and 79 years of age), who had apparently participated in a quinceanera (children’s “sweet-sixteen party) in which several attendees became ill with diarrhea, initially thought to be from simple indigestion, and taken to local hospitals.

Currently there are more than a hundred cases of suspected cholera affecting adults and around fifty among children in different Holguin neighborhoods, according to Café Fuerte’s sources within the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the province.

A little more than a week ago, authorities in neighboring Granma Province also confirmed the reappearance of cholera in the provincial capital of Bayamo. Cases have also been reported in Guantanamo Province.

The source of the cholera — appearing on the island for the first time in 100 years — is considered by experts to be from Cuban medical personnel who served in Haiti, where thousands have died from the disease since the 2010 earthquake there.