Four diarrhoea deaths reported from Odisha’s Rourkela

The recent spurt in diarrhoea cases in Sundargarh’s Rourkela has left the district administration on its toes. 

According to sources, the Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) has so far received 102 patients. Of them, four have died. The deceased include one man, two women and one girl. The number of patients has been on the rise since December 10 and a special ward is being set up to treat the patients. To tackle the situation, the district health department has also increased the number of beds in the hospital. 

Informing about the situation, the superintendent of RGH, Dr Sandhyarani Pradhan said, “Patients are coming from different areas such as Udit Nagar, Kissan Tola, Vedvyas, Panposh and Chhend. Earlier, we suspected it could be Cholera. But the symptoms proved us wrong. Doctors treating the patients diagnosed it as viral diarrhoea. Since we don’t have a microbiologist, we have sent the stool samples to Sundargarh for testing.”

A social worker, Pushpa Lenka alleged the situation could have been avoided had the concerned officials acted early. 

“We saw severe drinking water problem after the rains that lashed the city 15 days ago. The taps were dispensing muddy water. At places, water supply pipes had also developed cracks. Though we brought this to the attention of the concerned officials, they just ignored it saying they would look into it. But, they did nothing,” alleged Lenka.