No new Typhoid cases reported in the capital

There have been no new cases of typhoid in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, this past week, following an outbreak of the fever, aid workers told IRIN on Monday. Elias Ghanem, acting head of delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross, told IRIN that 133 patients were given treatment for the disease, but only only 59 cases were confirmed. "However, there has been no new case in the last week," Ghanem added. Humanitarian Officer for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Andrea Recchia, told IRIN from Dushanbe that an outbreak of typhoid was reported on 10 July in the capital. The Tajik Ministry of Health had designated three hospitals for the treatment of patients and began chlorinating water sources. Water is considered one of the main ways of spreading the disease. Earlier this month some 200 people were hospitalised with suspected typhoid in the southern Tajik province of Khatlon after an outbreak in the Bokhtar district. Again the disease was suspected to have spread through contaminated water. Typhoid fever is contracted when people eat food or drink water infected with Salmonella typhi. It causes sustained fever, severe headache, nausea and severe loss of appetite. The annual occurrence of typhoid fever is estimated at 17 million cases, with approximately 600,000 deaths.