than 130,000 people in Haiti and 2,761 have died . But those numbers from the Haitian health ministry are from December 18 . Medicins Sans Frontieres -LRB- MSF or Doctors Without Borders -RRB- , which has been operating cholera treatment centers throughout Haiti , warned that the disease is still spreading . Symptoms of the acute , bacterial illness , which is caused by drinking tainted water , can be mild or even nonexistent . But sometimes they can be severe : leg cramps , profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting , which can cause rapid loss of body fluids and lead to dehydration , shock and death . Some aid groups , including MSF , have criticized the cholera response in Haiti as woefully inadequate , given the fact that about 12,000 aid groups operate within the country . `` I recently went to Haiti 's capital , Port-au-Prince , and found my Medicins Sans Frontieres colleagues overwhelmed , having already treated more than 75,000 cholera cases , '' MSF International President Unni Karunakara wrote in a commentary published this week in a British newspaper , the Guardian . `` In the 11 months since the quake , little has
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Cholera has already killed almost 3,000 Haitians . Now it is threatening to cause misery in another vital way . A chunk of Haiti 's rice harvest will probably be lost because of farmers ' fears of cholera contamination , the United Nations said Wednesday . On top of that , consumers are afraid to buy rice grown in areas affected by the cholera outbreak . The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the Haitian Ministries of Agriculture and Health are providing hygiene information to farmers who are reluctant to step into rice paddies , fed by rivers and canals , to harvest the crops . The U.N. food agency , concerned that lost crops may lead to food shortages , urged more outreach and hands-on training in rural communities . The effects of the cholera outbreak were magnified by floods in November caused by Hurricane Tomas . `` Without a timely response to the damage caused by floods and cholera to Haitian agriculture , food security could plunge , worsening the effects of last January 's earthquake on the poor rural population , '' the FAO said in a statement . Cholera has sickened more