Gastroenteritis claims three children in Malkangiri

Malkangiri: Gastroenteritis has claimed three siblings and affected more than fifty children in Malkangiri district in the past two days, a government official said here on Monday.

The three infants were in the age group of five months to two years in the inaccessible Rekhapalli and Kandhaguda villages under the Chitrakonda Police limits, treating physician R K Mohapatra said today.

While 13 children were admitted at the Chitrkonda Community Health Centre (CHC) in serious condition, others were being treated in the respective villages, Mohapatra said.

"A medical team with adequate medicines and disinfection materials has been sent to the villages to take a stock of the situation so that it does not break into an epidemic," he said.

The tribals are used to drink contaminated water from available water bodies in absence of clean drinking water facilities as a result of which they fall sick very often, Mohapatra said.