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Panic in village as diarrhoea spreads

KORAPUT: Damni Diari, a 60-year-old tribal woman, has been sleeping on the verandah of her small hut in Debagandhana village in Nandapur block of Koraput district while suffering from diarrhoea for the last two days. She walks with a great difficulty to go to the toilet in the open fields of the village, she said. Jamuna Diari, 45, Budu Sisa, 60, Jagat Hantal, 35, and Rama Guntha, 25, of the village died of diarrhoea in the last one month, Bhagvan Alang, a villager said.

The villagers were spending days with a sense of fear of the attack of the infection as no one knew the cause of the outbreak and even the authorities who had visited the village a few days ago went off without any answers.

The village is cleaner than most others of the mountainous region of Koraput district. The village with more than 300 households has seven tubewells which were used in the most proper manner and bleaching powder was spread all over after the initial visit of the officials a few days ago, Dinabandhu Dalapati, a villager said.

The villagers had stopped consuming mushrooms and jackfruit for fear of spread of the infection though they were available in plenty in the village. But, surprisingly, the infection was spreading in the village, he wondered.

While the 10-km road to the PHC at Nanadapur was not in a god condition, there was no full-time doctor available in the hospital, he said. Everyday at least 40-50 patients were leaving the village for treatment. They were largely forced to go to Asha Kiran hospital in Lamtaput block, more than 60 km, Abhi Khora an elderly from the village, said.

Some villagers who had some medicines with them were feeling relieved. The school hostel managed by the State Harijan &Tribal welfare Department had only eight tablets of Metronodizole 400 mg for 80 children, Hari Alman, ward member of the village, said.

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