TASHKENT, July 25 (Xinhua) -- No cholera cases have been registered in Uzbekistan and reports that the disease may have entered from neighboring Afghanistan are unfounded, a Uzbek health official said on Monday.
"The information suggesting cholera entering Uzbekistan from Afghanistan is completely false, no cholera disease detected in our country," Nurmat Atabekod, deputy head of the Uzbek Sanitary-Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health Service, said in a statement.
Uzbekistan announced last week that it tightened sanitary-medical controls at its border crossings amid a reported cholera outbreak in neighboring Afghanistan.
All customs posts at land and air border crossings have been provided with thermal imagers and non-contact thermometers for examining those arriving in Uzbekistan, it said.
Uzbekistan shares a 144-km border with Afghanistan, with road and railway connections on a bridge over the Amudarya river. ■