Hospitals in Haifa are treating over 60 patients suffering from typhoid fever or suspected of having the disease. More patients are being admitted daily. All the patients come from the Haifa Bay area where an outbreak of dysentery affected over 5,000 people nearly two months ago.
The origin of the outbreak is believed to have been the same leakage from damaged sewage pipes into faulty drinking water pipes in the region north of Haifa. While dysentery becomes evident almost immediately, the incubation period for typhoid is from six to eight weeks. The incubation period for infectious hepatitis (jaundice) is somewhat longer, and thousands of children and pregnant women have already been innoculated against hepatitis.
The typhoid patients and suspects are being treated in special isolation wards. The infected wells in Haifa Bay have been isolated, and repairs effected in both the local sewage and water pipe networks.
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