With 15 fresh cases reported on Thursday, the diarrhoea outbreak in Alipur Arriyan village of Patiala district continues to spiral out of control.
In all, there have been 131 cases of diarrhoea reported so far. Despite the district administration’s efforts over the past seven days, the situation remains the same due to the failure to restore clean drinking water supply in the affected area.
Patiala Municipal Corporation has so far failed to identify and fix the suspected leakage in the underground water pipeline.
According to officials, multiple inspections have been carried out, but the exact location of the leakage is yet to be found.
Paramvir Singh, commissioner, Patiala Municipal Corporation, said, “We have fixed the leakages and health teams have already taken samples. Test reports are awaited. Until test reports are out, we are providing water to the affected area through 10 water tanks.”
He added that 90% of the water connections in the diarrhoea-hit area were illegal, which is why water contamination happened.
“Since we don’t have any scientific mechanism to identify water leakages, we have to manually dig and check it wherever there is a leakage. It’s a time-consuming task,” said Paramvir Singh.
Meanwhile, residents of the area were hesitant to take the alternative water supply given the water sample of a tank, which was providing water supply to the area, failed the potability test.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, residents of the area were hesitant to take the alternative water supply given the water sample of a tank, which was providing water supply to the area, failed the potability test.
{{/usCountry}}The MC commissioner said underground water was being supplied, but there was a possibility of contamination in the water tank itself, which has now been replaced.
A senior official in the district administration admitted that the source of water contamination remains unresolved. “We are conducting door-to-door surveillance, awareness campaigns, and round-the-clock medical assistance, but unless the pipeline is fixed and clean water restored, it will be difficult to fully contain the situation,” the official said.
The district health department has distributed ORS packets and chlorine tablets to prevent the spread.
Patiala deputy commissioner Dr Preeti Yadav, however, claimed that the outbreak was under control as they had completed mapping of all patients.
Patiala civil surgeon Dr Jagpalinder Singh said health teams had been deployed in the village round-the-clock, and a temporary medical camp had been set up to treat patients showing symptoms.