The Haitian government raised the number estimated to have died in the earthquake to 230,000. That does not include the number dying in a deadly new phase: diarrhea, infections and malnutrition.
AP:
The number of deaths not directly caused by the quake is unclear; U.N. officials are only now beginning to survey the more than 200 international medical aid groups working out of 91 hospitals — most of them just collections of tents — to compile the data.
Some 300,000 people are injured. At Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, patients continue arriving with infections in wounds they can’t keep clean because the street is their home. The number of amputees, estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 by Handicap International, keeps rising as people reach Port-au-Prince with untreated fractures.
Violence bred of food shortages and inadequate security is also producing casualties. Dr. Santiago Arraffat of Evansville, Ind., said he treats several gunshot wounds a day at General Hospital. “People are just shooting each other,” he said. “There are fights over food. People are so desperate.”
Nearly a month after the quake, respiratory infections, malnutrition, diarrhea from waterborne diseases and a lack of appropriate food for young children may be the biggest killers, health workers say.
Continue to monitor Lauren Stanley’s blog for information on Haiti and the role of the Episcopal Church.