GULMI, April 27: The number of people suffering from a diarrhoea epidemic that broke out at Dajakot of Musikot municipality-4 in Gulmi last Sunday has reached 160. Till Saturday afternoon, the disease remains out of control, said Musikot municipality health coordinator DB GC. The supply and drinking of contaminated water is blamed for the diarrhoea outbreak.

Among the ill, five are being treated at the Tamghas-based Gulmi Hospital and one has been sent to the Bharatpur Medical College in Chitwan and others have returned home following the treatment at a temporary health camp set up at Dajakot.

The same parasite has been found in the pathology test of stool sample collected from five infected. A team from the World Health Organisation is arriving here today to detect the cause of the problem, according to Gulmi Hospital’s Dr Uttam Pachya.

The Musikot municipality health section has operated a temporary camp at a local school in the affected area. Besides, a medical squad comprising health professionals from the District Public Health Office Gulmi and Gulmi Hospital are treating patients reaching the affected area. As Dr Pachya said, the disease is gradually on the verge of control. The entire settlement at Dajakot is facing the problem of drinking water. The source of drinking that 85 households here had been using regularly for the past one year is believed as the major culprit in causing diarrhoea.

The Dajakot folks have no other source of safe water in their locality. The local government has been supplying water collected from the area in some distance from the settlement through a tanker. Besides, they are being provided with mineral waters. Each household is now regularly getting a cartoon of bottled mineral waters, municipality mayor Somnath Sapkota said. He pledged no budgetary constraint and other sorts of lacking for the treatment of infected from the local government.

The health staff from the municipality and local representatives are conducting the sanitation-related public awareness programmes here. Stomach pain in the starting phase and the loss of consciousness, nausea, headache, loose motions and fever are the common symptoms facing the affected. RSS

 
• dajakot
 
• diarrhea
 
• epidemic