'Contaminated' potable water supplied by public health department (PHD) is found to be the major cause of jaundice outbreak in Cuttack city that is threatening to assume serious proportions, a CMC official said.
Out of some 109 water samples collected randomly from different locations of the city and sent for laboratory tests, 106 of them turned out to be contaminated with hepatitis A and hepatitis E viruses, the official said
Adding
the potable water supplied through pipelines was infected due to sewage contamination.
Following this finding, the district administration is now claiming that it is changing the broken pipelines on war footing. But the authorities are facing a herculean task as they are detecting at least five illegal connections for every genuine water connection in every household.
Although, the government has ordered to snap all the illegal water connections, the local authorities are finding it extremely difficult to implement the government order for lack of political will. "Yes the political pressure at the local level is the stumbling block", admits a government official.
Till yesterday, at least 150 cases of jaundice have been detected in the city and the maximum cases have been reported from Tulasipur area on the western limits of the city and its adjoining places, the CMC official said adding that the cases may rapidly increase in future as the people here in these localities have been using the contaminated water for over two months now.
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