Three cholera patients escape from Teku Hospital

Kathmandu / July 24: Three cholera patients admitted to Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Diseases Hospital in Teku have escaped.

Three patients from Thaiba, Lalitpur, were admitted to the hospital on Sunday. They ran away from the hospital on Tuesday night.

The in-charge of the emergency room of the hospital, Bhaneshwor Yadav, said that the trio escaped from the hospital within an interval of one and a half hours. One of them escaped through the ventilation of one of the toilets at the hospital while the other two escaped from the ward.

Four people were brought to the Teku Hospital from a rehabilitation center run by the Drugs Free Society Nepal at Thaiba, Lalitpur. One of them was referred to Patan Hospital on Sunday after the patient complained of having serious complications.

Similarly, a youth who had tested positive for cholera from the same center on July 14 is undergoing treatment at the isolation ward of the Teku Hospital.

Cholera was confirmed during a rapid test after the clients showed symptoms of diarrhea at the rehabilitation center in Thaiba, Lalitpur. However, the results of the rapid test are yet to arrive.

The District Public Health Office, Lalitpur and the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division sent them to Teku Hospital after they tested positive for cholera.

Yadav speculated that those who escaped may have fled from the hospital as they were drug addicts undergoing treatment at the rehabilitation center. A search operation is underway to find them. According to the hospital, there is a high risk of cholera spreading in the community after the trio escaped, so a strict search operation has begun.