Jaundice, swine flu scare in Odisha’s Twin City

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 7:

After assuming epidemic proportions in the Western Odisha town of Sambalpur, jaundice is now spreading its wings in Bhubaneswar and adjoining Cuttack too.

Till date 30 cases of jaundice and two cases of swine flu have been admitted to Capital Hospital in Bbhubaneswar while the threat is looming large in Cuttack with 15 patients identified so far.

The condition of two of the jaundice patients of Bhubaneswar remains critical and both of them have been admitted to ICU of Capital Hospital.

The two swine flu patients were identified in Bhubaneswar and were admitted to the Capital Hospital yesterday. They are being treated separately in the dengue ward. They might be moved to another facility to prevent spread of this highly contagious disease. Relatives of the swine flu patients have been banned from visiting these patients admitted to the Capital Hospital.

In Cuttack, jaundice returns to Kadam Rasul area where all the 15 patients have been identified. Polluted supply water has been identified to be the cause of the disease here.

It may be noted that the supply water pipes of the city are too old and have cracked at many places. Polluted drain water and sewage get mixed up with drinking water lines at places contaminating the supply of water with in many areas causing the disease.

Public Health Department (PHD) Executive Engineer of Cuttack Arun Nayak visited the affected areas and inspected the condition of water supply with his team yetserday.

“PHD water supply pipelines cover 547 kilometres out of 947 kilometres of pipeline laid out in the city. While 50000 residents depend upon it as per government estimates, the actual number could well be over a lakh as per calculations by private organisations.  We have found polluted water to be the cause of this disease and have set up 20 teams to change the pipes as and when required.”

He further advised consumers to call up PHD and get the situation inspected whenever they notice polluted water from supply pipes.