Kathmandu, September 4:

No case of severe outbreak of cholera was verified throughout the country last month, the Epidemiology and Diseases Control Division (EDCD), Department of Health Services, has said.

This, the division says, means that the disease is under control and no severe cholera epidemic has spread in the country.

Dr Bindeshwar Prasad Yadav, focal point for diseases and out break control at EDCD, said that the information regarding outbreak of cholera, also called gastroenteritis (GE), the division received were verified as mere rumours.

“Except for the case of Rautahat in June and the several outbreaks of gastroenteritis in the valley in June and July, no critical situation has been recorded so far,” Yadhav said, adding that minor cases are reported now and then, but they are not outbreaks.

Yadhav, who recently returned to the capital after visiting flood-hit villagers in the Tarai districts, said that the disease was under control even though they feared gastroenteritis outbreaks due to the floods.

“Awareness programmes to the grassroots people prevented the epidemic.”

In the valley, the number of people reporting gastroenteritis dwindled in August. There was a huge surge in gastroenteritis patients from June 29 to July 19 when 1753 cases were reported in the four big hospitals in the valley.

The Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital (STIDH) alone recorded 1024 gastroenteritis cases. This number reduced to 18-20 in the hospital in the last week of August.