'Colaba woman has cholera'

MUMBAI: A 35-year-old woman from the Ambedkar Nagar slum in Colaba was confirmed as suffering from cholera, said civic officials on Monday. Even as the BMC stuck to its "no need to panic'' stand, TOI-on a visit to the slum-found that many residents were having loose motion and were vomiting.
The civic department has taken four water samples from the area for testing and the results are expected on Tuesday.
TOI had earlier reported that three persons were suspected to be having cholera. BMC's executive health officer Dr Jairaj Thanekar confirmed that one of them, a 35-year-old, had a "a mild form of cholera".
"In all, six patients have been transferred from various hospitals to Kasturba's infectious disease facility, of which the culture test on this one tested positive for the El Tor strain of cholera, which is a mild form,'' he said. The other two, he claimed tested negative, even as independent experts said samples were likely to show up as negative, once a patient was put on medication.
"We admitted three cases of diarrhoea on Monday,'' said Dr Nitin Kokre from St George's Hospital. Preeti Chauhan (3), sister of an earlier patient, was one of them. But Dr Thanekar said he wasn't aware of these admissions.
On a visit to the sprawling south-Mumbai slum, TOI found that one in every five houses had a member with loose motions or vomiting in the past fortnight. "My four-month-old son had diarrhoea for 15 days and was admitted to Cama Hospital. The doctors were not sure whether he would survive or not but he is fine now,'' said Sikandar Chauhan, a slumdweller.
Civic officials claimed they had screened residents in over 12,050 houses for diarrhoea but residents were unaware of any such health screening.
Health officials admitted to a rise in gastroenteritis cases. A total of 103 persons were admitted to public hospitals in the 24-hour period from Sunday to Monday morning.