Dbn patients don't have cholera

2008-11-28 11:04

Durban - A Durban hospital has confirmed that two Zimbabwean brothers admitted for suspected cholera would be discharged on Friday as tests revealed they had not contracted the water-borne disease.

RK Khan Hospital spokesperson Kamla Chetty said results were received late on Thursday and both men were negative for cholera.

The two were admitted to the hospital on November 23 after they experienced cholera symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea, leg cramps and dehydration.

At the time, Chetty said the siblings were working in South Africa, but visited Zimbabwe on November 7.

They returned on November 21 and were admitted to hospital two days later.

A third person was also admitted to Addington Hospital this week with suspected cholera.

The results of tests carried out on the 48-year-old Zimbabwean woman were not immediately known.

Cholera outbreak

Health Minister Barbara Hogan said in a statement this week that Zimbabwe had been experiencing an outbreak of cholera since October. It started in Harare.

By mid-November, it had spread to nine of the country's provinces, causing 6072 suspected cholera cases and 294 deaths.

Zimbabweans started streaming into South Africa for help and by Monday November 24, border towns in South Africa's province of Limpopo reported 187 cases of cholera and three deaths.

Hogan said two truck drivers, one Zambian and the other Mozambican, were confirmed to be suffering from cholera and had been treated at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital (formerly the Johannesburg Hospital) and Addington Hospital in Durban.

Both succumbed to the illness and died. Hogan said that apart from Limpopo, other affected provinces in South Africa were Gauteng, with nine cholera cases and six suspected cases, KwaZulu-Natal with one confirmed case, Mpumalanga with one suspected case and Western Cape with one suspected case.

- SAPA