Macharia Mwangi And Simon Siele
2 July 2008
Nairobi — The Ministry of Health Tuesday confirmed that the strange disease outbreak in some parts of Nakuru and Naivasha districts was cholera.
Laboratory analysis conducted on specimen from patients admitted to hospitals with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea had revealed that the victims had cholera.
A report at Naivasha Medical Office indicated that two adults and two children died from the outbreak at Mbaruk area while many others were admitted to hospitals in Gilgil and Nakuru.
The department has also ordered the immediate closure of eating places in the areas until when public health inspectors would be satisfied that the outbreak had been contained.
The confirmation came as more cholera patients continued to stream to hospitals in the two districts.
The victims were admitted with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea at the Rhein Valley hospital in Gilgil while others were referred to the Rift Valley Provincial hospital in Nakuru.
10 patients
Medical teams from the Public Health department and those of Disease Surveillance were dispatched to Mbaruk and Kasambara areas of Gilgil Division, where more than 50 people have been diagnosed with the disease.
A visit by the Nation to the affected villages established that at least 10 patients, most of them pupils from Echariria Primary School, had been admitted to Rhein Valley hospital with similar symptoms.
The Public Health department discouraged the transfer of patients to the referral hospital in Nakuru to avoid transmission of the bacterial disease, opting instead to monitor it at the source area.
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