Cholera Spreads to Ecuador; 20 Cases Cited

Health officials said Monday that more than 20 cases of cholera were confirmed in Ecuador in the first sign that the worst outbreak of the disease in Latin America this century is spreading beyond Peru’s borders.

Health Minister Plutarco Naranjo Vargas told a news conference that those who had been felled by the disease were from Puntilla and Bajo Alto, two small settlements on Ecuador’s coast near the border with Peru.

Naranjo said the authorities suspected that a further 15 people were thought to have caught the disease, and he appealed to them to come forward and seek treatment.

Inhabitants of the two villages had been asked not to leave their communities until the epidemic had been controlled.

The bacterial disease, usually spread by tainted water or seafood, has killed some victims in only a few hours through acute dehydration and kidney failure.

A cholera outbreak has swept Peru since the first case was reported in January, and by last week the death toll was approaching 200 out of 45,000 reported cases.