Waterborne diseases claim 20 lakh children a year: Experts

15 May 2010, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

Around 20 lakh children die of waterborne diseases in the country a year, said physicians and researchers at a discussion yesterday. Diarrhoea alone causes 90 percent of deaths of under-five children, they said. The waterborne diseases include diarrhoea, cholera, hepatitis, polio, typhoid, allergy and dermatitis. Amar Health, a health news portal, and Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (Bapa), an environmental group, jointly organised the discussion on 'Water contamination in Dhaka, health injury and ways out at Dhaka Reporters' Unity auditorium in the city. Water supplied in the capital by Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) is not only inadequate but also filthy, stinky and toxic, said Amar Health editor Dr Aupurba Pandit in the keynote presentation. He also said the city dwellers pay about Tk 500 crore for the treatment of waterborne diseases every year. The packaged water is not safe either, as many unscrupulous traders sell unsafe water, he added. Although the underground water is normally clean and safe, it gets contaminated due to rundown and crude supply system and faulty connections to households, said Prof Firoz Ahmed of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet). "Toxic substances coming from untreated industrial effluents released by mainly textile industries are very much responsible for water contamination of the rivers around Dhaka," he said. Industrial wastes constitute at least 60 percent of the contaminants of Dhaka rivers while medical wastes, domestic and human sewage constitute the rest, said Md Khairul Islam, country director of Wateraid. Expressing his concern over excessive dependence on ground water, Islam called upon all to help prevent wastage in water consumption pattern. More than 200 tons of medical wastes are generated everyday in Dhaka city. Wasa produces at best 190 crore litres of water against a daily demand for 220 litres. Of the total production, only 13 percent is taken from the rivers Buriganga and Shitalakhya around the capital and the rest is extracted from underground. The government has to undertake effective plan to stop industrial pollution of river water at source, said Bapa President Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, who chaired the discussion. Dr Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin, a lawmaker from Lalbagh area, said bureaucratic tangle is a major obstacle to resolving any problem. Prof Dr Rashid-e-Mahbub, former president of Bangladesh Medical Association, and Dr Md Shahadat Hossain and Dr SK Roy of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, also spoke.