BEIJING, June 15 -- A health expert warned on Tuesday that the Afghan capital is on the verge of a cholera epidemic, with more than 2,000 cases of the disease and at least eight deaths reported in recent weeks.

    Afghanistan's Health Ministry on Monday confirmed up to 300 cases, but claimed they have been dealt with and there had been no fatalities. It said there was no risk of the disease spreading.

    But on Tuesday, Fred Hartman, technical director for a USAID-backed health and development program, told The Associated Press that eight or nine people had died in the past two weeks. He warned the disease could spread quickly throughout the city's 4 million population.

    Hartman said the disease had been detected in wells around the city, the source of drinking water for most of the city's residents, as well as irrigation ditches.

    Cholera is a major killer in developing countries, where it is spread mainly through contaminated food or water. The bacterium attacks the intestine and causes severe diarrhea and dehydration.

    A spokesman for UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, Edward Carwardine, said the last cholera outbreak in Kabul was in 2003 when there were 7,000 suspected cases. But he said the government was fast to respond and the disease quickly disappeared after wells were chlorinated.

    In 2001, 114 people died from a cholera outbreak in Afghanistan's north, according to the World Health Organization's Web site. It had not information on the latest cases.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)