Cholera alert over cockles

Disease Control Department (DCD) director general Dr Thawat Suntrajarn said yester¬day checks had been made on the spread of cholera across the country from January to November. It uncovered 761 people with severe diarrhoea caused by cholera, seven of whom had died.

Thawat said the ministry had brought the disease under control but close monitoring was needed in Khon Kaen, Udon Thani, Sakhon Nakhon, Lamphun, Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Kalasin, Nakhon Phanom, Samut Sakhon, Nong Khai, Ayutthaya and Mukdahan.

Most people in the provinces still ate halfcooked food like cockles, which was sometimes tainted with cholera bacteria. This caused severe diarrhoea.

Thawat said the Laos Public Health Ministry claimed it had found cholera bacteria in fresh cockles imported from the Northeast of Thailand. But he rejected the claim, as Thailand had never exported fresh cock¬les to Laos.

He said the Fisheries Department also had not found any contamination in cockle farms across the country.

He believed the contamina¬tion found in Laos might have occurred during transport after a merchant crossed the border and bought cockles for ship¬ment back to his country.

by Pongphon Sarnsamak

The nation.