VIJAYAWADA: Think twice before buying meat and fish from meat shops as a majority of the traders across the city are not maintaining hygienic conditions in their stalls which could land you on a hospital bed with some serious illness during the monsoon season.
When Express inspected several chicken stalls in the city on Monday, it was found that many of them were constructed encroaching upon public spaces including footpaths. Chicken and mutton have been slaughtered inside the shops in an unhygienic manner. The cages in which chickens are brought to shops are kept on the roadside, causing much inconvenience to the people. Moreover, a majority of the traders are also indiscriminately dumping the waste including blood into the open public sewerage system, resulting in the breeding of bacteria and viruses.
For instance, Chuttugunta junction in the city, an important link road between Eluru Road and MG Road, turns into an unauthorised fish market between 7 am to 12 noon on Sundays as a large stretch of the road was encroached upon by fish vendors.
Similar unauthorised fish markets also prevail near Ajith Singh Nagar, Budameru Vanthena and Chitti Nagar areas. However, the public health wing of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) are turning a blind eye towards the matter for many years, allege some section of residents.Leave alone diarrhoea and typhoid, unhealthy meat and fish cause serious ailments like jaundice, hepatitis and even kidney failure. “Health risks caused from consuming unhygienic meat and fish range from minor vomiting to major neurological disorders’, said Dr Noor Mohammed, general physician.
Vomiting and diarrhoea are the most commonly diagnosed health issues. Even excessive vomiting will destabilise the sodium potassium ionic concentration in the body, leading to serious health damage, he added.When contacted, VMC chief medical and health officer M Gopi Naik said that the civic body has received many complaints from the locals in this regard.
A team of health officials would conduct surprise checks at the meat shops and chicken stalls in the city shortly as part of its drive to prevent the outbreak of epidemic during the monsoon. Meat samples would be collected and sent to the laboratories for examination. Notices will be also served to all stalls if they failed to maintain proper hygienic parameters, he added.