Report by Badal Tah, Rayagada, July 26: The present district administration under the leadership of Collector Ms Swadha Dev Singh releases the daily dash board reports on Acute Diarrhoea Disease(ADD) outbreak in Kashipur block. According to these official reports, an outbreak means when more than five diarrhoea cases reported or a single death. So, logically the outbreak has turned into an epidemic in Kashipur. But fortunately, the patients numbering 96 since publication of the dashboard on 18th July has come down to 55 till 25th July. The death due to ADD has just increased to 1, ie, from 7 to 8. Similarly number of affected villages has gone up from 7 to 8. On the other hand the number of villages under surveillance has considerably increased from 78 to 280. Disinfection in villages has also gone upto 241 from mere 25. Number of treatment centres like CHC, PHC & others are 7 and there are eight numbers of mobile medical teams going around in the area apart from presence of very senior doctors and consultants. There is every possible step taken by the present district administration.
“These deaths this time have come as a rude shock to one and all. In spite of all proactive steps by district administration, there are different information from different sources including that of political outfits. The hype is just unfortunate. Believing the technical persons and working with the medical team with suggested measures is need of the hour. The cause is contaminated drinking water. There is serious lapse on the part of Rural Water Supply & Sanitation(RWSS). May be, as a part of the disaster management plan, the drinking water issue was not taken up by Swadha’s predecessor though he visited number of times to Kashipur on the plea of monitoring 5T schools, DMF, grievance redressal meetings, etc. Swadha has just joined last month and is compelled to carry forward the liabilities created by her predecessor. Nevertheless, she has managed the whole issue with competence and perseverance. She has resolved to stop the spread of the epidemic by involving every institution- Government, Non-government, PRIs and Corporate. It seems 200 crores have been sanctioned to supply safe drinking water to all 420 villages of Kashipur but it has not yet been implemented. Hope such deaths due to contaminated drinking water will not be repeated in future”, said Sri Bijaya Mishra, a social worker, who distributed ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines to the patients at their doorsteps during the Corona pandemic.
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