The inmates in the holding cells of Higuey jail say that four people have died in the recent cholera outbreak. These inmates, who are being treated for the disease in the city’s Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia Hospital, said that the authorities have only admitted to two fatalities. They also described the hellhole in which they are detained, with no toilets and infested with cockroaches, rats and worms. They said that they were not asking for their freedom but that they feared death and wanted to be transferred to a cleaner and safer place like the Correction and Rehabilitation Center. They described how the two cells each hold more than 100 people who have to use a hole full of worms instead of a toilet. The local Public Health director said that the inmates would be transferred to another place so that his teams could clean up the cellblocks, a process he told Hoy reporter Juan Ramon Inirio would take at least 72 hours. Since Friday, 4 January when the outbreak is thought to have started, ambulances have been moving prisoners back and forth for treatment for severe dehydration caused by the disease.