PORT-AU-PRINCE – At least 2,707 people have died in Haiti in the cholera epidemic that has affected the impoverished country since mid-October, according to figures released Monday by the Public Health Ministry.

The bulletin said that another 128,251 people have been affected by the disease, of whom 68,764 were hospitalized, though 66,876 of them have since been released from medical care.

Cholera, which was eradicated in Haiti until the outbreak in October, has spread to all 10 Haitian provinces, with the hardest hit being the northwestern region of Artibonite, where 813 people have died.

Next among the provinces most ravaged by the disease are Nord with 501 dead, Nord-Ouest with 216, Grand’Anse with 149, Nord-Est with 120, Sud-Est with 100, Sud with 93, and Nippes with 44.

The epidemic, which has affected 105 people in the neighboring Dominican Republic, appeared for the first time in the central city of Mirebalais.

A French medical study said that the outbreak was caused by the dumping of human waste in a river from a camp of Nepalese soldiers, members of the U.N. Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti, or Minustah.

The epidemic comes as Haiti is still struggling to recover from the Jan. 12 earthquake that left roughly 300,000 dead and more than a million people homeless. EFE