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 Haiti cholera outbreak assaults every section of it, sickening more than 91,000 people and killing more than 2,000. Foreign reports tell a half of the infected is hospitalized, though the disease is so rapidly developing that in some cases soon after people fall ill death occurs.

Patients can lose as much as one liter of fluid an hour, said Dr. Jordan W. Tappero, director of the Health System Reconstruction Office at the CDC's Center for Global Health. "It's in all 10 [regions] of the country," Tappero told reporters from the Assn. of Healthcare Journalists on Wednesday at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. "It’s everywhere."

Tappero said Haiti’s neighbor to the east, the Dominican Republic, is now reporting cases of cholera in its two largest cities. But he said it's hard to know how far the disease will spread there because that country has better access to sanitary water.

Cholera is caused by a bacteria, Vibrio cholerae, which causes an infection of the intestine and produces a toxin that triggers watery diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death.