BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is set to visit Sambalpur on Wednesday to take stock of the jaundice outbreak situation even as the disease continues to spread among the population in the city.
However, the State Government on Monday claimed that there has been a drop in incidence from around 50 per cent of the cases tested for the disease to 30 per cent. There have been noticeable signs of decline in the number of cases in the last few days and the outbreak is gradually being brought under control, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Arati Ahuja told mediapersons here.
According to official statistics, the outbreak of Hepatitis E has claimed 17 lives while the toll unofficially is put at around 40. More than 1270 persons have been afflicted with the virus till date. On Sunday, around 20 persons had tested positive for the disease.
Ahuja asserted that the outbreak was on the wane on the effect of steps taken on a war-footing to provide safe drinking water, which is the main transmission route, to the people. The administration has stepped up operations to repair and renovate the pipelines while undertaking super chlorination of the drinking water. Intense awareness campaigns have been launched to educate people on boiling the water before drinking and other health and hygiene issues. The results are beginning to show as the cases are coming down, the Secretary said.
However, health experts have sounded the caution stating that the decline in cases cannot yet be considered to be a cessation in the outbreak. Hepatitis E has an incubation period of three to eight weeks and hence a temporary slowdown may not signal abatement in transmission. They have called for a complete overhaul of the piped water supply system in the city that has been reduced to tatters in the absence of maintenance and repair over the last more than four decades.
“The repair works have been undertaken only on the pipelines that are in the open but a major chunk of the system still remains crushed under roads and drains in inaccessible state. Even though there is super chlorination of water at origin by the time it reaches the houses, it can still become contaminated. The only way is to ensure people drink boiled water but that too is a difficult proposition among the lower class and slums,” said a health official.
While the outbreak has continued since May this year, experts are actually hoping for weakening of virulence that would halt the outbreak. Hepatitis E is a self-limiting virus that is seen to lose virulence over a period of time. The sooner it comes, the better, they stated.
