Jun 14 2005
More than 2,000 cases of cholera have been reported in the Afghan capital Kabul, and health experts fear the city is on the verge of a cholera epidemic.
At least eight deaths have been reported in recent weeks.
Earlier this week Afghanistan's Health Ministry confirmed almost 300 cases, but claimed they have been dealt with and there had been no fatalities. It also said there was no risk of the disease spreading.
Fred Hartman, technical director for a USAID-backed health and development program, reported that eight or nine people had died in the past two weeks, and warned the disease could spread quickly throughout the city's 4 million population.
Hartman, who has been involved with efforts to contain the outbreak, says an epidemic is imminent and over two thousand cases have been reported so far.
He says there are always deaths with cholera.
According to Hartman the government is well-equipped to deal with the outbreak and has set up an emergency task force to ensure that hospitals have the necessary equipment and medicine to treat patients.
The disease had apparently been detected in wells around the city, the source of drinking water for most of the city's residents, as well as in irrigation ditches.
Cholera which is a major killer in developing countries, is spread mainly through contaminated food or water, the bacterium attacks the intestine and causes severe diarrhea and dehydration.
Hartman's warning is in sharp contrast to Health Ministry official Ahmid Shah Shukomand's claim earlier that the outbreak had been contained.
Shukomand reiterated those comments, and said even those few hundred people suspected of having cholera have not been confirmed to have the illness.
Health authorities have launched a campaign urging people to boil drinking water, wash vegetables before eating them and regularly wash hands. Health ministry workers have chlorinated wells throughout the city, he said.
Edward Carwardine a spokesman for UNICEF, said the last cholera outbreak in Kabul was in 2003 when there were 7,000 suspected cases, and he said the government was quick to respond and the disease quickly disappeared after wells were chlorinated.
According to the World Health Organization in 2001, 114 people died from a cholera outbreak in Afghanistan's north.