Jaundice toll 4 in Odisha’s Bolangir; engineer suspended

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bolangir, May 16:

The jaundice death toll in Odisha’s Bolangir town has risen to four with the death of a youth yesterday.

According to reports, Puran Rajput, a native of Gandhinagarpada of Bolangir town, was suffering from jaundice two weeks ago. The family members had admitted him to a private hospital in Raipur in neighbouring Chhattisgarh where he died last night.

“I have heard about the death. It has also come out in the newspapers. His family members are saying Rajput has died due to jaundice. But it would not be right to jump to any conclusion at this stage. Let us wait for the post-mortem report of the deceased, which would reveal whether the death was due to jaundice or some other disease,” chief district medical officer (CDMO), Bolangir, Rabi Narayan Tripathy told the media.

It may be mentioned that the state government on Friday had suspended executive engineer, Public Health Department (PHD), Bolangir, Bhagyadhara Sahu for negligence in performing his duty to control the spread of jaundice in the district.

The suspension order was issued by the PHD chief engineer, Khitish Chandra Sahu.

Talking to the media, the chief engineer had said that preliminary investigation had revealed the presence of jaundice virus in the drinking water supplied by the PHD.

“As per the standard operating procedure, the department should check all sources of drinking water before it is supplied. Since the government has felt that the department had not taken any steps, it had ordered the suspension of the executive engineer,” he said.