Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is working on a package that would provide "material assistance" to cholera victims in Haiti, his spokesman said Friday, strongly indicating for the first time that hundreds of thousands of people affected will get financial help from the United Nations.

The statement from deputy spokesman Farhan Haq follows Thursday's statement in which the U.N. said for the first time that it was involved in the introduction of cholera to Haiti and needs to do "much more" to end the suffering of those who contracted the disease, estimated at more than 800,000 people.

Haq said "the United Nations also intends to intensify its support to reduce, and ultimately end, the transmission of cholera, improve access to care and treatment and address the longer-term issues of water, sanitation and health systems in Haiti".

Despite repeated appeals, he said, U.N. efforts to tackle cholera have been seriously underfunded.

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