Berhampur: There is a fear of an epidemic outbreak in the district of Ganjam after the Cyclone Titli calmed down and the resulting flood like situation prevailing in many localities. But as of now there is no such report from any of the affected areas of the whole district, a senior health official said.
Despite the receding of the flood water have started, there is a lot of debris here and there lying in many areas including worst-hit Aska, Purushottampur and Sorada. All the factors pose a serious health hazard to the general public there.
“There are chances of getting infected by water and vector-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, diarrhoea, hepatitis A and E in the affected areas,” health experts said.
According to the Secretary of Berhampur branch of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Kiran Kumar Panigrahy, stagnant water has become the source of breeding of many kind of disease spreading insects including mosquitos and this pose a risk of outbreak of diseases like malaria, dengue and skin allergy in all those affected areas.
He said that the early symptoms for both water-borne and vector-borne disease are fever, abdominal pains, diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration and fatigue.
By maintaining hygienic conditions in all the affected villages, spread of such serious diseases can be strictly controlled, he added.
As per the statement by Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO) of Ganjam, Sadananda Mishra, there has been no report of any epidemic outbreak from any place of all the affected areas in the district so far.
To create awareness among the people, health workers are working day in and day out in different areas, informing people the need to maintain hygiene in all their surroundings and also to wash hands before taking foods. They also advised the people to boil the water before using it for drinking, the CDMO said.
He further said that all the medical facilities in the district were functioning in a normal way.
“We have sufficient quantities of medicines. The medicines have already been dispatched to the community health centers (CHC) in the flood affected areas”, said additional medical officer (public health), Himansubala Patnaik.
Till now, she said that only one case of diarrhea was reported from Gochha area in Sorada block after the Cyclone Titli.Ei was reported.
To clear the debris in all the affected villages, the volunteers of Biju Yuba Bahini have been working voluntarily, MLA (Gopalpur) and former minister, Pradip Panigrahy said.
He said that almost 200 volunteers were working at Aska, which is said to be the most affected town in the floods.
“We think it will be cleaned in the next two to three days in the entire district,” he said.
Apart from them, the fire services personnel too were lending their support in cleaning of debris work.
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