First U.S. Cholera Case Reported in Florida

A Florida woman has the first case of cholera to spread from Haiti to U.S. soil, Florida health officials confirmed Wednesday. Florida is home to about 241,000 Haitian-born residents, and local health-care officials have been asked to watch out for the disease, although officials said the water supply is safe and they weren’t worried about the disease spreading locally. Officials in the Dominican Republic reported that a construction worker who had recently returned from Haiti had been diagnosed with cholera, but public health officials said they weren’t worried about the disease spreading further in the country. The cholera epidemic in Haiti—spread through contaminated water—has claimed more than 1,100 lives and an additional 18,000 people have been infected.