Hyderabad: Doctors in the city have reported treating a few cases of cholera. This is a notifiable disease and any doctor or hospital that identifies the disease in a patient must inform the government, a doctor specialising in infectious diseases said.
The state health department flatly denied any case of cholera either in Hyderabad, or any of the other districts in Telangana. Director of Public Health Dr B. Ravinder Nayak, when asked about cholera cases, said none had been reported in the state in the past few months.
A top official from the HMWS&SB confirmed one case of cholera from Dhatunagar in LB Nagar. “The person is believed to have contracted the disease by consuming contaminated food. He informed us that he had attended a function where he had a meal. This was last week,” Sunil Kumar, general manager of the board’s quality assurance team, said.
He said the board officials had checked the water quality in the locality, and found that there were no problems. “It is mostly likely that the food he consumed was contaminated by flies,” the official said.
Inquiries with several doctors revealed that two cases of cholera were reported from Jubilee Hills, and one, that of a child, from Himayatnagar.
Doctors said these cases had been confirmed after cultures of stool samples of suspected patients were tested for the Vibrio cholerae bacteria.
A microbiologist said the real threat were the other water-borne diseases. “Out of every 100 confirmed samples of such diseases, we are seeing 80-85 cases of salmonella that causes typhoid, around 15-19 of shigella which causes diarrhoea laced with blood, and one per cent of cases of Vibrio (cholerae),” the doctor explained.
The World Health Organisation lists cholera as an “extremely serious disease.” According to WHO, it takes between 12 hours and five days for a person to show symptoms after consuming contaminated food or water. It is fatal if left untreated.
Infograph
Vibrio cholerae, a bacterium, causes the disease.
Causes acute diarrhoeal infection.
Disease can be spread by house flies.
Can be contracted by consuming contaminated food, or water
