THE outbreak of Cryptosporidiosis at Newport Centre's swimming pool has been declared over according to Public Health Wales.

Dr Lika Nehaul, consultant in communicable disease control at the body, said it is confident that the cleaning of the pool, along with improvements to the pool's filter systems, has cleared the problem.

The body said that in total 20 people were confirmed as having Cryptosporidiosis who have used the swimming pool at Newport Centre.

Cryptosporidiosis causes watery diarrhoea, stomach pain, nausea or vomiting and fever.

Water sampling was taken after the pool was closed on September 6 and found the bug to be present. Since then the pool has been cleaned and a number of modifications have been made.

Dr Nehaul reminded the public that personal hygiene is of the utmost importance in preventing infection with cryptosporidium in a swimming pool environment.

Sheila Davies, Newport City Council's corporate director for regeneration and the environment, said: "The pool remains closed while the final re-opening procedures are completed and we anticipate being in a position to open the pool shortly."

Public Health Wales had investigated the outbreak alongside the environmental health departments of Newport City Council and Torfaen County Borough Council.

Councillors were earlier informed, in a response to councillors, that the pool would not reopen until "sport and leisure and public health officials are satisfied that the pool water treatment processes can remove Cryptosporidium from the water."

In answers to queries over tests at the pool by Tory councillors Charles Ferris and Dave Williams, the members were told in an official response that sport and leisure conduct regular microbiological sampliong of swimming pool water.

A test was done on September 4 and the results were as normal and showed no bacterial counts, the response read.

However it added Cryptosporidium is not a "routine test parameter" for swimming pools, due to the complexity of the sampling process for the bug.