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Caution against waterborne diseases

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The health authorities fear that the failure to provide safe drinking water will lead to spread of water-borne diseases.

With the advent of summer, there is water shortage at many places with water being supplied in tankers. But the poor people at worksites are not necessarily educated on proper hygiene, said D. Sreenivasan, Deputy District Medical Officer.

He said 21 people were recently taken ill with hepatitis-A from the worksite of the Single Buoy Mooring at Elankunnapuzha.

The Health authorities sent water samples for testing, but believe that lack of hygiene resulted in mixing of drinking water and the water used for construction.

Quite a few of the patients were taking treatment at General Hospital while some opted for traditional treatments.

The Deputy DMO said that while all cases were not confirmed to be jaundice, but the symptoms were the same.

Open defecation was another reason for the spread of diseases, Dr. Sreenivasan said.

The civic authorities should provide adequate sewerage and drainage facilities besides imposing cleanliness, without which there would be sporadic outbreak of waterborne communicable diseases.

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