No cholera cases registered in Uzbekistan: Health official

Tashkent, July 26 No cholera cases have been registered in Uzbekistan and reports that the disease may have entered from neighbouring Afghanistan are unfounded, a Uzbek Health official said.

"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 on Monday.

Uzbekistan announced last week that it tightened sanitary-medical controls at its border crossings amid a reported cholera outbreak in neighbouring Afghanistan, Xinhua news agency reported.

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.