Capital city at risk of waterborne diseases
By Manish Gautam, KATHMANDU, JUN 19 -
With the much-awaited monsoon rains hitting the country, the threat of waterborne diseases looms large in the Kathmandu Valley. More people have started thronging the only government hospital for tropical and infectious disease—Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital (STIDH)—for treatment.
Waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid and gastroenteritis break out due to the consumption of polluted water and contaminated food items in the monsoon. “Although the patients have just started coming, we are fully prepared to deal with the cases of waterborne diseases,” said Dr Inda Prasad Prajapati, director of Sukraraj Hospital.
Physician Dr Shanker Bahadur Shrestha said people have to be more careful and start practicing personal hygiene seriously to keep communicable diseases at bay.
Diarrhoea, cholera, hepatitis A and B, typhoid fever, malaria and also dengue remain a threat with the monsoon arrival in the Kathmandu Valley, said Dr Shrestha. He all should consume clean water, wash hands with soap and water frequently, maintain personal cleanliness and take fresh foods, among other things.
“The typical symptom of diarrhoea is watery stool. It is dysentery if the stool is mucus and the patient suffers from cramping and fever,” said Dr Shrestha. “Diarrhoea could be dangerous if not treated on time.”
Similarly, Dr Shrestha said typhoid fever also remains a threat to Kathmandu denizens. Typhoid is a bacterial disease caused by Salmonella typhi. “People get infected after eating contaminated food or drinking beverages,” Dr Shrestha said. “The only way to mitigate the typhoid risk is paying attention to food and drinking habit and referring the people showing those symptoms to the nearby hospital.”
The symptoms of typhoid include high fever, malaise, headache, constipation, and diarrhoea, rose-coloured spots on the chest and enlarged spleen and liver.
Dr Arjun Raj Panta, pediatrician at STIDH, said every year the hospital detects cholera, which occurs mainly when drinking water contaminated by monsoon rains reaches the pipeline of human beings, posing high risk of cholera infection. He said if symptoms such as diarrhoea and vomiting are seen, patients should be immediately taken to hospital and if the infected are children and elderly, they have a higher risk of infection, which could be fatal.
“As the roads are covered in dust, there is high chance of cholera outbreak,” said Dr Panta. “People can reduce the chance of contracting cholera by maintaining cleanliness, drinking only treated water or other safe fluids and eating cleaned and well-cooked food.”
Last year, the District Public Health Office, Kathmandu, recorded around 7,500 cases of typhoid and 12 cases of cholera in the Capital.
The World Health Organization says Japanese encephalitis is a leading cause of viral encephalitis in Asia with 30,000-50,000 clinical cases reported annually. In 1996, according to the WHO, Nepal saw 697 cases with 118 deaths suspected by Japanese encephalitis and in 1995 the total number of JE cases reported was 772 with 126 deaths.
Source : The Kathmandu Post
