Himachal government team to investigate reasons for diarrhoea outbreak

Hamirpur (HP), March 13 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh government has constituted a team of health experts to investigate the reasons behind diarrhoea outbreak in Tauni Devi area of Hamirpur district, officials on Wednesday said.

Over 290 people were found suffering from diarrhoea and dysentery in 27 villages of Tauni Devi of the district, 186 were cured while four were under treatment in the hospital, Chief Medical Officer Hamirpur Dr RK Agnihotri told PTI on Tuesday.

As many as 26 teams of the health department have visited 27 affected-villages and distributed medicines. The number is on the rise and a report on the new cases would be known by the evening, health officials said.

The five-member rapid response team (RRT) comprises Health Department Deputy Director Dr Yashwant Ranta and Dr Kiran Mokta and Dr Anurag from the department of microbiology and medicine from the Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital (IGMCH) Shimla, a local doctor and Lab Technician Parikshit from the microbiology department of Hamirpur Medical College.

The team members interacted with the patients at Tauni Devi Civil Hospital and also collected water samples from the affected areas.

The district health department team has also sent stool samples of the patients from affected areas to the Medical College, Tanda, for testing and the report of these samples will clarify what is the cause of the disease.

Most of the patients are from Gwaradu, Lohakhar, Tauni Devi, Chahad, Tapre, Bari, Mahade, Ghalot, Siswa, Barin, Khandehra, Ladayoh and Jhanikkar villages, the officials said.

"Three days ago I suddenly felt pain in my abdomen followed by vomiting after which I started taking medicines at home, but when I got to know that diarrhoea has spread on a large scale, I went to the hospital on Monday," a male patient in his 30s told PTI.

A spokesman of the Jal Shakti department said that so far no adverse report of their water had come. Despite this, the department was busy in chlorinating the sources and also taking samples from other areas.

It is for the third time that diarrhoea outbreak has been witnessed in Hamirpur district in the past 14 months of the Congress rule. In January 2023, about 1,000 people were affected by diarrhoea in Rangas area of Nadaun, the home assembly constituency of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.

Diarrhoea again spread for the second time in ten panchayats adjoining Hamirpur town in June 2023. PTI