Clinic saves baby hours from cholera death

A baby girl hours from dying of cholera was saved at a treatment centre set up by a British charity, Haitian doctors said today.

The six-month-old was brought in by her mother suffering serious dehydration from the disease, which has killed more than 7,500 people and infected 600,000 since an epidemic began in Haiti in 2010.

She survived because Bas Boen health clinic, set up by charity Merlin, was close enough to her home to allow her to receive urgent rehydration in time. Dr Ixinmon Ilioto, who treated her at the clinic just outside Port-au-Prince, said: “The baby girl was very badly dehydrated and would have died if she had had to travel much farther.

“But we were able to stabilise her and prevent that.” He told how a boy of nine who was also close to death was saved in recent days.

The clinic, which serves about 40,000 people, had been abandoned but was reopened with Merlin’s help. Out of more than 3,500 patients treated for cholera, only six have died. It is now run by Haiti’s health ministry.

Visit merlin.org.uk for more details.