Diarrheal deaths

With the advent of monsoon, like previous years, this year too, diarrhea is fast spreading in the Far-Western and Western regions of the country. In recent days, the Bheri Zonal Hospital (BZH) in Nepalgunj has witnessed an increase in the number of diarrhea patients coming for treatment. The graveness of the situation is clear from the fact that four people have already lost their lives, and hundreds of patients have been hospitalized in the last four days alone. According to our local correspondents, BZH is crowded and patients are forced to sleep on the floor owing to the lack of beds. The report of cholera bacteria detected in some of the patients should be taken very seriously by the concerned authorities, and do all that is needed to stop it from becoming an epidemic.



A very sad reality of Nepal is that the government and all those working in the field of disease prevention only wake up when easily treatable water-borne diseases like diarrhea and cholera become an epidemic and lives are lost. This time our effort has to be on not letting what happened last year because that would be a matter of national shame. It is important to note that last year more than 200 lives were lost due to these easily treatable diseases in Jajarkot and surrounding districts.



So far the emphasis has been on treating the diseases, but if past experiences are anything to go by, the causes that lead to spread of such diseases are hardly touched upon and our rural population—often times the unlucky ones living in the poorly managed makeshift shelters whose villages have been swept away by floods—is always at risk. Therefore, this time our effort has to be on finding out the causes that are responsible for the breakouts and nip the problem in the bud.



Our local correspondents report that most of those who are affected by the diseases are the ones who are forced to drink untreated water. Therefore, the government should at least provide the affected areas with water purifying tablets, if not expensive water treatment plants, and make sure that the foodstuff they are eating is safe for human consumption. Moreover, a team of medical experts with enough oral rehydration supplements and medicines need to be dispatched immediately. This is the least the government can do. Let us not forget to see the wisdom in the saying “prevention is better than cure”.

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