Poor hygiene, water contamination prima facie cause of Palwal kids’ death

The Haryana health department on Wednesday said the probable cause of death of seven children in Chilla and Chilli villages of Palwal could be unhygienic living conditions and contamination due to illegal drinking water pipes

The Haryana health department on Wednesday said the probable cause of death of seven children in Chilla and Chilli villages of Palwal could be unhygienic living conditions and contamination due to illegal drinking water pipes.

The population of the affected villages is 2,947 and 763 with total households of 186 and 72, respectively. The outbreak started on September 9. (AFP)

However, the final cause of death of these children can only be commented upon after completion of epidemiological investigations, a health department report stated.

As per the laboratory findings of the area, all 425 malaria test reports, 12 dengue ELISA samples, 64 RT-PCR Covid-19 tests, and 50 Covid-19 antigen tests have tested negative.

Officials said of the seven deaths, two deaths were reported of children below 5 years of age.

Additional chief secretary (health) Rajeev Arora said information regarding suspected fever deaths among children in Chilli and Chilla villages, a district rapid response team was activated by Palwal civil surgeon and sent to the area affected.

An epidemiological investigation was ordered in coordination with WHO representatives, he said. The ACS said the population of the affected villages is 2,947 and 763 with total households of 186 and 72, respectively. The outbreak started on September 9.

He said house-to-house active case search for fever is being done by the health teams and 1,089 houses have been checked as part of epidemiological investigations. Besides this, all anti-larval activities such as fogging, water bodies’ checking, etc are on in the affected area.

Elaborating on the probable reason for the outbreak, he said officials found a leakage in the pipeline of drinking water and public health officers have been instructed to repair it at the earliest.

Temporary medical camp has been set up in the area and cases treated symptomatically and referred as per the severity.

Some deaths may be due to pneumonia and gastroenteritis as per records of Nalhar medical college.