PUBLISHED: 1 Jan 2025 at 19: 39
Just a small number of Myanmar and Thai patients have been diagnosed with the disease, which is characterised by severe diarrhea, and have been treated, according to public health and local safety authorities on Wednesday. This is despite a small cholera outbreak that has been managed in Thailand.
The number of people with typhoid in Myanmar’s Shwe Kokko city is even declining, they added.
The condition is not very serious, according to Dr. Ramet Wongwilairat, chairman of Mae Sot Hospital, despite the fact that Mae Sot and four other regions in Tak’s northern border state have been designated cholera control red areas due to their high chance of encountering new cases.
Cholera now ranks 53rd on Thailand’s listing of 57 communicable illnesses under surveillance.
Thus far, a total of four people, two Thais and two Myanmar citizens, have been diagnosed with cholera and completely treated. There have not been any new cases off from three undiagnosed cholera cases, said Dr Suphachok Wetchaphanphesat, a public health inspector.  ,
He added that these three asymptomatic situations, which were just identified along with the four clinical cases, included two Thai nationals and two Thais.
” We need to keep up appropriate cholera surveillance measures, especially during the New Year’s Eve celebrations when people typically have a colorful feast,” he said.” This may possibly increase the risk of them contracting this food-borne disease.
In order to reduce the risk of cholera spread through food, he said, several measures are being taken in Tak to help reduce the hygiene standards at new markets and public toilets as well as the hygiene standards of street food vendors.
The two health officials, as well as Dr Sopon Iamsirithaworn, a public health chief inspector and spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health ( MoPH), also played down the furore over the World Health Organization’s ( WHO ) announcement that cholera is a new major health emergency.
They argued that the only reason for reclassifying this illness is to raise awareness about the rise in cholera cases in many nations and call for action to stop them. A boundary security official who declined to be identified claimed that Shwe Kokko reported 761 cholera cases that required medical treatment from December 1 until December 27, while the most recent information on the typhoid outbreak revealed just 40 cholera individuals were also receiving care there.
A Thai health team was dispatched to Shwe Kokko on Monday to assist in containing the cholera outbreak while providing Myanmar healthcare workers with more oral rehydration solutions ( ORS ) and other medications to treat the illness.