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Haiti's cholera toll rose on Thursday above 300, hitting 330 as doctors sought desperately to contain the epidemic as victims overwhelmed the quake-hit nation's crumbling hospitals, spilling into its maternity wards.

One week after cholera was confirmed in Haiti for the first time in decades, the death rate is slowing but almost 4,700 people have now been infected and officials warn it could be years before it is eradicated, foreign media reported.

Clinics were beyond capacity with cholera patients on the floor of one radiology department and another five-bed maternity centre, not well equipped to treat the virulent diarrhoeal disease, housing 300 patients.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned the outbreak was far from over and Haiti should prepare for the disease to hit its capital Port-au-Prince, which is teeming with tent cities after January's catastrophic earthquake.

Some 1.3 million people displaced by the 7.0 earthquake on January 12 are still crammed into thousands of makeshift camps. Aid agencies fear cholera could spread like wildfire in such conditions.