HispanicBusiness

Cuba's health authorities Tuesday reported an outbreak of cholera in Havana, with 51 confirmed cases of the disease in the Caribbean country's capital.

According to a Health Ministry statement published on the front page of the Cuban Communist Party daily Granma, the outbreak was located in the district of Cerro. It was detected on January 6 and has been brought under control, the authorities said.

"Transmission is in the extinction phase," the Health Ministry said.

This outbreak of cholera comes half a year after the previous one in Cuba, a country where this serious intestinal disease had been eradicated for over a century.

Three cholera deaths and 417 infections were reported in July, in an outbreak of the disease that had started in the eastern province of Granma and that Cuban authorities reported over a month later.

According to the newspaper Granma, the Havana outbreak was caused by a man who sold foodstuffs. He was an "asymptomatic carrier of the disease" since last year's outbreak, the daily said.

In nearby Haiti, cholera has killed thousands of people since October 2010.