Over 50 cases of water-borne diseases, Vadodara civic body denies Cholera outbreak

The VMC, however, has denied that the city is witnessing a Cholera outbreak. Medical Officer for Health Dr Devesh Patel said, “There have been a couple of Cholera cases, but it is false that the city has more than 50 cases of Cholera. The other cases are waterborne diseases, mainly diarhhea and vomitting. There has been an issue of contaminated water supply in many parts of the city and the department concerned is looking into the matter and trying to resolve the issue.”

The VMC, Patel said, had also tested random water samples from affected areas earlier in June and the report detected the presence of E. coli (Escherichia coli), a type of bacteria that is found mainly in the feces of humans or animals.

“Cholera is caused by the infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria and we have not found its presence in the water samples. There have been a couple of deaths last month but we investigated and concluded they were cases of other waterborne diseases. The current outbreak is of common waterborne infections and the Infectious Disease Hospital is seeing about four or five admissions a day, but it is not a severe outbreak,” Patel added.

VMC Leader of Opposition from the Congress party, Ami Ravat, wrote a letter to Mayor Keyur Rokadia on Saturday, expressing concern over the supply of contaminated water in the old city areas. Ravat said, “We demand that the supply of contaminated water should be stopped in all areas where complaints have been received or else, the VMC should undertake super chlorination or provide clean drinking water through tankers. If the VMC cannot provide clean to some areas, no water taxes should be levied there. An emergency high powered committee meeting should be convened to discuss and prepare plan of action to resolve issues related to contaminated water supply, waterborne disease, water line leakages, and pressure issues. The VMC must, at war footing, identify the source of contamination and eliminate the same.”

Ravat has also demanded that the VMC must hand out compensation to families, who have lost their family members due to diseases from consuming contaminated water, which Congress corporator Chandrakant Shrivastav had also demanded after visiting some of the affected areas
Ravat in her letter has cited local reports of three persons having succumbed to water-borne diseases in the old city area in mid-June. Ravat said, “Water contamination has become a routine complaint in the old city and the problems remain unresolved. If one tries to mend at one place several more places are affected. The reason behind this is, most of the water supply lines in old city are very old have surpassed their lives since several years.”