There are fears that disease could threaten survivors of Hurricane Matthew which already took the lives of nearly 900 people in Haiti.<br /><br /> Cholera has killed more than a dozen people in the southwest, according to officials. Still more are being treated in hospital in Jeremie. <br /><br /> The Pan American Health Organisation has warned of a surge in cholera cases. The poor Caribbean island has been hit by widespread flooding.<br /><br /> “A lot of people died. Yesterday we registered 438 dead in my region. We have 25 people suffering from cholera. We have a lot of wounded people and the situation is dire. It’s a catastrophe,” said Jean Gerrier, a member of the Haitian parliament for Moron district.<br /><br /> The UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund is releasing five million US dollars to help Haiti. It has already loaned eight million dollars to UNICEF to respond to the cholera outbreak.<br /><br /> The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that 750,000 people need emergency aid in Haiti following the hurricane.<br /><br /> Matthew howled through Haiti’s western peninsula on Tuesday with winds of over 230 kilometres and hour, and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said.<br /><br /> Thousands of people died of cholera after the earthquake which struck the island in 2010.<br />
