Continued degradation in the quality of environment in city and widespread use of unsafe water for drinking, particularly in the suburbs is increasingly putting lives of the children at risk to catch diseases such as gastro-enteritis. The epidemic of diarrhea has turned into a chronic shape as more than 1,000 child patients have been reported in public health facilities, Business Recorder learned on Monday.
Sources said that more than 150 of gastro-enteritis have been are reported daily in four major public sector hospitals of metropolitan including Civil Hospital Karachi, National Institute of Child Health (NICH), Children Hospital North Nazimabad and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. This are only registered number of patients in the public sector healthcare institutions, as equal number of patients rushed to private hospitals and mobile quack shops in the narrow lanes of almost all towns of metropolis. It has been also learnt that some patients visited Sindh Police Hospital Garden, 100 visited Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi and more than 100 gastro patients were reported at Sindh Government Hospital, Ibrahim Hyderi.
Sources inside the health department told Business Recorder that so far, more than 500 patients have been reported in Hyderabad, 100 in Tando Muhammad Khan, 120 in Tando Allahyar, 90 in Mityari, 80 in Dadu, 70 in Jamshoro, 170 in Badin, 125 in Thatta, 65 in Sanghar, 24 in Tharparkar, 30 in Sukkur, 46 in Shaheed Benazirabad, 18 in Naushero Feroze, 22 in Larkana, 54 in Kamber Shahdadkot and 45 in Kashmore. Karachi, Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan and Tando Allahyar are among the most dangerous cities and Larkana, Tharparkar, Kashmore and Sukkur are the cities where prevalence of the disease is very low.
They said that five towns of the city including Malir Town, Bin Qasim Town, Gadap Town, Landhi Town and Shah Faisal Town and were reported engulfed into the viral and bacterial diseases particularly gastro-enteritis and diarrhoea. Influx of patients with diarrhoea reported at various government healthcare centres of the city, they added.
They revealed that around 80 percent among the affected people complained excessive usage of contaminated water due to unavailability of clean drinking water. They also said health department had conducted tests of water samples collected from worn-out pipelines of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KW&SB) at various points of the metropolis and tests of some samples confirmed presence of Ecoli at higher rates.
Experts say that Diarrhoea, commonly known as watery faeces, attacks the human body due to excessive intake of contaminated water especially in hot and humid days of summer to beat the ever-increasing heat during the day timing. They said that increase in pollution is another cause for increasing gastro diseases among children. Due to the unavailability of clean drinking at the port city, urban population is forced to drink contaminated water, exposing the children to the epidemic.