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Shantinagar diarrhoea crisis ends after 5 days
Diarrhoea outbreak in wards 3 and 4 of Shantinagar Rural Municipality in Dang district has come under control after five days, health officials confirmed on Wednesday.Durgalal KC
Diarrhoea outbreak in wards 3 and 4 of Shantinagar Rural Municipality in Dang district has come under control after five days, health officials confirmed on Wednesday.
Hari Pun, chief of the Shantinagar Health Post, said the health post received 21 patients on Wednesday morning and none on Thursday.
“We can now safely confirm that the disease spread has been effectively tamed. The health camps set up to treat the affected people have been removed,” he said.Diarrhoea had downed more than 1,600 people in Shantinagar. The disease incidence was high in Patetakura, Ganari, Gahatol, Adhere, Bhaltol, Khatritol, Chiraghat of Shantinagar-3 and of Ekali, Kajeri and Hirapur in Shantinagar-4.
The outbreak was caused due to contaminated water source of Mailipani Drinking Water Project. More than 800 families were relied on the project for their daily drinking water. The District Drinking Water and Sanitation Division Office had urged the people in the two wards to stop using the water from the project after the officials confirmed that its water was contaminated with coliform bacteria.
“The water source has been decontaminated since and the people have started to use the water,” said Tilak Neupane, engineer of the division office.A team from the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division had also collected water samples from the source for laboratory test.
Health workers criticise govt inaction
Health workers have blamed the federal and provincial governments of not being serious enough to control the outbreak of diarrhoea in Shantinagar Rural Municipality. Chief of Shantinagar Health Post Hari Pun claimed that the governments at the province and the centre did not send any help despite learning that hundreds of people had been taken ill.
“There was a great need for doctors and health workers, but none arrived to help us. Our strained human resources did their best to treat the people by working around the clock at the time of crisis,” he said.
Lawmaker Amar Bahadur Dangi, however, said that the province government was deeply concerned by what had unfolded at Shantinagar Rural Municipality in Dang and instructed the government officials in the district to provide necessary assistance wherever needed.