Russia’s federal consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor reports the outbreak of cholera on the island of Haiti is growing increasingly more serious. According to Haiti’s Healthcare Ministry’s official data, over 18,000 people diagnosed with cholera had been hospitalized by mid-November, and over a thousand died.

Patients diagnosed with cholera have been registered in all of the country’s ten departments as well as in the Dominican Republic and the state of Florida, U.S. The World Health Organization’s Pan-American office predicts the epidemic will be spread further and affect the neighboring states of the Caribbean.

Given the fact that many Russians often spend their New Year recess in the Dominican Republic, Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor suggests that companies and sole traders working as tour operators and travel agents always inform of the health risks all their customers who are planning a trip to Central or South America, especially to the Dominican Republic.

The division also warns the citizens who are going to Central or South America, especially to the Dominican Republic, against flying there. If, nevertheless, some people don’t think they can cancel their trip, it is suggested that they get acquainted with a brochure on preventing cholera infection.