CHENNAI: A day after two patients in a private hospital at Teynampet here tested positive for cholera, food safety and public health officials Wednesday morning initiated an investigation into the source of the water-borne disease.
Three other patients in the same hospital are suspected to have the infection. This is the first time in two years that the state is seeing cholera cases.
Food safety officials will collect 10 food and water samples from the hospital.
Preliminary inquiries have made public health officials suspect that the carrier of the infection could have been a patient from Uganda, one of the two confirmed cases, who showed symptoms of cholera a day after he was admitted to hospital.
"He had carried food from his home country. But we are investigating other angles too -- how the remaining patients got the infection and if there are other cases in the city," said a health official.
Director of public health K Kulandaisamy, designated food safety officer in the city R Kathiravan and Greater Chennai Corporation health officer Dr N A Senthilnathan are probing.
Chennai Corporation deputy commissioner, health, P Madhusudhan said, “As of now the infection is contained within the hospital. We are doing an end to end search to ensure that there is no spread.”
The patients were moved to the isolation ward to prevent spread of the infection. All of them were stable, sources told TOI on Tuesday. They had been admitted to hospital for various reasons, including cancer.
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium vibrio cholerae. Public health experts say it is an extremely virulent disease that can cause severe acute watery diarrhea.
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