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Quake-hit Refugees Need Urgent Shelter Ahead of Rain to Prevent Health Disaster: Haiti Health Minister
"There's discussion going on right now on how to deal with this issue quick enough," Larsen told AFP after a briefing by World Health Organization (WHO) officials about the influx of desperately-needed medical supplies.
The UN has warned that if heavy rains arrive -- perhaps as early as mid-February -- while as many as a million Haitians are still homeless it could provoke a public health catastrophe, spreading disease through dense, insanitary makeshift encampments.
The disaster left over 170,000 people dead -- including thousands of bodies still rotting under the mountains of debris, increasing the risk of contamination especially if heavy rains soak through the tangled ruins.
The beleaguered government, struggling to cope after the massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed the capital and surrounding areas, has set up "a commission to deal with this exact problem -- they met this morning," Larsen said, declining to provide further details.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the capital have since the January 12 quake been sheltering in squalid encampments in city parks.
The minister said it was necessary to ensure "better sanitation (in the camps) to prevent the emergence of communicable diseases," saying such a development was "the biggest concern for the government of Haiti."
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