After Nadiad, Kalol declared cholera-hit in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: A second Gujarat town within six days has been declared cholera affected on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Kalol town reported five cases, prompting Gandhinagar collector Kuldeep Arya to declare under the Epidemic Diseases Act for a period of one month, the area within a 2km radius of Kalol as affected by the ailment.
The district health authorities had collected 38 food samples from various parts of the town of which five tested positive for cholera. The disease mainly spreads through water or food contamination.
District officials suspect contamination of drinking water due to rupture in underground civic lines. Engineering teams have been formed to identify the leak and rectify them.
On Friday last week, Nadiad town in Kheda district was declared as cholera-affected. Here too the process to identify leakage in drainage lines is being carried out to stop the contamination. While one of the four patients detected with the disease has been discharged, a six-year-old boy, a two-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy with the disease are still under observation. They are residents of Kanipura Bhilvas Amdavadi Bazar area in Nadiad. Close to 50 individuals were experiencing symptoms of the disease in Nadiad town are being treated.