Cholera outbreak in Karaikal: 45 days down, health dept has no clue
Public health emergency has been declared in Karaikal district, where 1,700 people have been affected by cholera; 600 have been admitted to hospitals for treatment
Forty-five days since the outbreak of cholera in Puducherry’s Karaikal district, the health department seems to be struggling to zero in on the reason for the sudden outbreak of cholera in the region.
Meanwhile, the Union Territory’s health department has declared a public health emergency in Karaikal district and schools and colleges have been shut from Monday till Wednesday to clean the water tanks in the institutions.
Speaking to The Federal, a senior health department official at Puducherry said that some of the water samples from the localities where the cases of cholera are more, were tested to be positive. “However, there are also places where the water has not tested positive for cholera. So, we could not confirm the reason for the sudden outbreak,” the senior health department official said.
Problem at delivery stage?
Residents of Karaikal receive drinking water from Agalangan canals, where Cauvery river water is received, chlorinated and then supplied. “We could not ascertain the reason for the outbreak. But, one of the reasons could be the contamination of drinking water at its delivery stage,” said Dr Sivaraja Kumar, deputy director of Karaikal health department.
Elaborating on it, Dr Sivaraja said: “Every time we receive the first set of water released from the Cauvery river, it’s first opened for irrigation for some time since it might be more polluted, and then, only later, it’s opened for drinking purposes after pumping it and chlorinating it. But it looks like this time the early water was released for drinking purpose. Again, this could be one of the reasons and we could not confirm it.”
This was confirmed by an engineer associated with the Public Works Department. He said that the water was released early for drinking purposes as they did not expect Cauvery water before the monsoon. “We got the Cauvery water in early May and we could not keep it or divert it for irrigation in the early stage. So, we opened it for drinking purposes,” he said.
The engineer also confirmed to The Federal that one of the pumping wells in the Agalagan was contaminated. “Contaminated well is one of the pumping wells that gets recharged with the Cauvery water and it is then sent to the water plants and then supplied to the people,” he said.
As of Monday, as many as 1,700 people have been affected by cholera, of which 600 have been admitted to the hospital for treatment. On Sunday alone, 61 people were found to be affected and 21 of them have been hospitalized.
Prolonged contamination?
Asked if prolonged contamination of water could be the reason for the outbreak, Collector L Mohamed Mansoor told The Federal that food poisoning could also be a reason for the outbreak.
“We could not conclude that it is only because of water contamination. But we are in the process of cleaning the water tanks and pipes. We are checking for leakages in the drinking water pipelines where there is a possibility of drainage water being mixed with the drinking water. Few water pipelines which are in bad condition would be replaced with the new ones,” the collector said.
Also read: As monsoon approaches, Kerala readies for familiar battle with disease outbreaks
Meanwhile, the Puducherry government has asked the people to drink boiled water and wash their hands periodically. Section 144(2) of CrPC has been imposed in the district to make the public spaces safe for the people.
“All the eateries and people at the public utility places have been instructed only to supply boiled water to the people. Section 144(2) of CrPc has been imposed to implement the same and people will not be restricted in any other manner as it was in the case of COVID-19 restrictions,” a senior police officer associated with the Karaikal district said.
