Haiti cholera death toll hits 330

Twenty-five more fatalities brought the toll from Haiti’s cholera epidemic to 330 Friday, as medical teams desperately sought to contain an outbreak that aid workers warned could “spread like wildfire.”

Nearly 5,000 patients have overwhelmed hospitals in the affected central regions of the country, and cases are now suspected just 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the capital Port-au-Prince, where 1.3 million people displaced by January's catastrophic earthquake are still living in squalid camps.

Days after cholera was confirmed in Haiti for the first time in decades, the death rate began to slow, although one week later it has jumped again, with health authorities announcing 25 new deaths and 65 more people hospitalized with the disease - a total of 4,714.

Clinics were operating beyond capacity around the Artibonite River, which is believed to be carrying the deadly cholera bacteria across the country to the Caribbean coast at Saint Marc, the outbreak's epicenter some 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince.

International aid group Save the Children said the outbreak was threatening some 25,000 new mothers and their babies in the hundreds of temporary camps in and around the capital.