Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Bid to check water-borne diseases

C. Maya

Chlorination of wells begins

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Officials of the Health Department and local bodies have intensified steps to prevent water-borne and vector-borne diseases in many slum colonies and coastal wards in the district where water stagnation after intense rain spells has become a persistent problem.

Unless long-term solutions are evolved for preventing water stagnation, these areas would remain vulnerable to the outbreak of water-borne infectious diseases, health officials pointed out. Health workers and Corporation officials have begun chlorination of wells and disinfection using bleaching powder in the Wireless colony at Kannanthura and the adjacent slum colonies of Bala Nagar and Eanthivilakam colony. Disease surveillance has been stepped up and health workers have started house visits to give awareness classes to people. Training programmes for junior public health nurses and health inspectors, with an accent on the precautions to be taken in the context of new and emerging communicable diseases, began on Monday. Director of Health Servic es T. K. Kuttmani and District Medical Officer E. K. Madhavan led the programme.

Even though the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases have been coming down in the district , waterlogging in coastal areas where sanitation facilities are poor and the density of population is high remains a cause for concern. Contamination of wells due to the seepage of raw sewage mixed with rain water has been a persistent problem in coastal areas like Pulluvila, where cholera outbreaks were reported in 2002 and 2003.

In December last year, some 60 cases of acute diarrhoea had been reported from the Pozhiyoor area. Two of the cases had been confirmed as cholera. Water samples collected from a local canal and a well used by people had been found to be highly contaminated with faecal matter.

Sanitation inadequate

Sanitation facilities are woefully inadequate and even those who have toilets in their homes do not use it. Rain water overflowing from an open yard used for defecation by people often forms puddles inside the compounds of houses, increasing chances of water-borne diseases. This ti me around, most local bodies in coastal areas have already started the chlorination of wells. Though people are now more aware of the need to take precautions to prevent diarrhoeal diseases during rainy seasons, access to safe drinking water continues to be a problem here. Health officials also consider the threat of leptospirosis to be very real, against which people needed to be on guard.

Meanwhile, there has been no rise in the fever cases being reported from across the district in the past one week, according to the Health department. The number of cases being reported have been steadily on the decline, indicating that the control activities have been effective.

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