Diarrhoea spreads in cyclone hit south and south-eastern districts amid water crisis

Staff Correspondent, NewAge, June 3, 2009

People in the remote areas of the south and south-eastern districts, inundated by tidal surges associated with cyclone Aila on May 25, are still facing acute crisis of drinking water, food and medicine amid an alarming spread of water borne diseases.
   

A total of 17,708 persons contracted diarrhoea in Khulna and Satkhira in the past seven days, said offices of the civil surgeons. On Tuesday alone, 4,320 people with diarrhoea were treated in the hospitals of the two districts.
   

Political parties in the affected region alleged lack of coordination in relief and rehabilitation activities in the southwest districts even after visits by ministers.
   

Donor agency Oxfam on Tuesday said more help from the international communities in relief and rehabilitation activities was needed in the affected areas where water became contaminated and diseases were spreading fast.
   

The sanitation systems have collapsed in the affected areas and human, animal and fish corpses are polluting the countryside, the organisation said and branded the affected areas as ‘an ideal breeding ground for all kinds of diseases’
   

Reports from Barisal said more than five thousand tube-wells in the Brasial division were out of order, triggering acute crisis of drinking water while water-borne diseases were spreading.
   

The Barisal public health engineering office said they had repaired about two thousand tube-wells. Sources in the office said a total of 5,203 tube-wells were out of order in six districts of the division.
   

Infiltration of saline water and filling of sand and mud after embankments and flood control dams were broken in the affected areas, especially on the shoals and coastal regions, damaged the tube wells.
   

Md Yunus Ali, superintending engineer of Barisal PHE, said teams of mechanics have already been sent to the affected areas and already 2,000 tube-wells have been repaired and the rest would repaired or replaced within this month.
   

Reports from remote areas in Satkhira, Khulna and Barguna said the relief materials that reached the areas were inadequate and the affected people also alleged mismanagement in the distribution of the little food and water.
   

In remote Shyamnagar of Satkhira, where diarrhoea is spreading alarmingly, people said they did not get medicine while the medical officers working in the affected region said they had enough medicine in their stock but failed to reach them to the remote areas for lack of transpiration or funds.
   

‘Medicines could not be reached to the remote villages as boat was the only mean of transpiration when people in the areas are in bad need of medicine,’ said Ataur Rahman who leads nine medical teams at Shyamnagar.
   

Members of medical teams deployed in different areas of Shyamnagar and Dacope said they were reaching the remote villages in boats on their own funding and it is tough for them to continue the medical services in this way.
   

The Satkhira civil surgeon, Ebadullah, and the Khulna civil surgeon, Md Lutfor Rahman, said they did not get any fund for transporting the medicine to the remote areas.
   

They claimed that they were trying to send the medicine at the earliest and the medical teams have been spending money on their own.
   

The Khulna district and city units of BNP in a press conference on Tuesday alleged that they observed lack of coordination in the post-Aila rehabilitation activities in the southwest districts, even after visits by the ministers to the Aila-hit areas.
   

The party alleged that though lakhs of people have been passing days half-fed or unfed after the cyclone, the government has not taken effective steps.
   

It called on the government, donor agencies and the affluent to stand by the affected people.