Editorial
Rising threat of diarrhoea
Start awareness campaign to check its further spread
A RAPID rise in the incidence of severe diarrhoea and cholera in the city and its surrounding areas is alarming. Records of the International Cholera and Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh) ICDDR, B hospital show that the epidemic has taken a serious turn. Since March 24, the hospital has been witnessing a sudden rise in the number of admissions infected by these epidemics.
Understandably, the ongoing drinking water crisis in the city has played a major role in the spread of the disease and the severe hot spell of the last few days has compounded the situation further. Those most at risk in this condition are the old people and children residing in the city's slums as well as its adjacent areas.
The ICDDR, B sources have also stated that most patients who have been admitted there are from the slum areas within the city and its outlying areas like Tongi, in Gazipur. What is further alarming is that some 48 per cent of the patients already admitted are children below the age of five.
Reassuringly, the director general of health services, who has also attributed the epidemic's high incidence to the city's present water crisis, has set up a number of centres to test water quality at different spots in the city as well as directed all the city's hospitals to open diarrhoea units. Admittedly, the decision to provide the slum areas with tanks where Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) will supply drinking water is also a useful step.
More importantly, prevention of the infectious disease is better than treating after the disease has struck. At the same time, creating awareness among the people about taking primary health care measures such as avoiding stale and rotten food and refraining from using non-supply water for drinking and washing purposes, where possible taking boiled water, and so on are also important.
The DG health services should also take immediate measures to make water-purifying tablets available everywhere and supply those to the slum-dwellers for free. The government immediately also start an awareness campaign including advice from experts on the primary steps to be taken against the disease through its publicity organs.
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