Cholera outbreak in Kota Belud worsens

Star: KOTA KINABALU: The cholera outbreak in Kota Belud, some 60km north of the city, is showing no signs of abating. The number of villagers quarantined and treated in the district hospital has risen from 86 on Thursday to 100 yesterday.
Twenty-four patients were confirmed to be suffering from the disease while 59 were identified as carriers.
Health officials were monitoring the condition of 17 more people who were complaining of diarrhoea, Kota Belud hospital director Dr Nelson Miasin told Kota Belud MP Datuk Salleh Tun Said, who visited the hospital yesterday.
“All those warded at the hospital for cholera are from 18 villages around Kota Belud,” Salleh told reporters after meeting relatives of the cholera patients at the hospital.
Advising Kota Belud villagers not to panic over the cholera outbreak, Salleh said health officials were taking various preventive measures to ensure the disease was contained.
“We are advising the villagers to ignore any rumours and instead listen to advice from Health Department personnel,” he added.
Salleh said villagers had also been advised to keep their surroundings clean while practising good personal hygiene.
Forty-nine medical department personnel from the southern districts of Papar and Kuala Penyu have been dispatched to Kota Belud to assist their counterparts at the district hospital there.