It’s not gastro but cholera, insist experts
MUMBAI: Mention cholera, and civic health officials go into denial mode or prefer to term it as the less-threatening gastroenteritis. But city doctors and health experts insist that cholera, a highly infectious intestinal disease, is reported from India as borne out by World Health Organisation statistics. A walk around Kasturba Hospital, the corporation’s hub for infectious disease, reveals that cholera detection is routine. Medical staff admit that nearly four to five cases of cholera have been detected in the few months following monsoons. Two patients with the disease lie in isolation in ward nine.
A Kasturba doctor admitted that sporadic stool samples had shown the presence of the vibrio cholerae bacteria in the last few days. “The hospital informs the health department, which is responsible to prevent its spread,” the doctor said, adding that the BMC refused to divulge details about cholera cases as it would mean admitting to its failure—be it in controlling water contamination or implementing preventive health measures in the community. In state-run JJ Hospital in Byculla, a roughly scrawled Marathi chart outside the emergency ward mocks all civic denials.
“Cholera cases have been reported from Byculla, JJ Marg, Mazgaon and Reay Road,” it says. Epidemiological records that track infectious diseases further question the civic denials. The weekly epidemiological record of the World Health Organisation show that in 2005 India notified 3,115 cholera cases and six cholera deaths to the international body.
Given that civic hospitals as well as private diagnostic laboratories in the city admit to notifying the civic health authorities about cholera, the claims of “there is no case of cholera in the city” cause more suspense, say experts.
Pathologist Avinash Phadke, who runs a chain of private diagnostic laboratories, admits to have notified three cases of cholera to the BMC this year. “The sporadic cases are not a reason for panic as not all strains cause an epidemic,” he points out. However, the rationale doesn’t go down well with the BMC with the daily press note admitting to three admissions of gastroenteritis to JJ Hospital and seven to Kasturba Hospital from Monday to Tuesday.
Whispers of ‘international repercussions’, ’embargo’ and ‘travel restrictions’ in the BMC’s health corridors seem exaggerated considering that the WHO wayback in 1973 removed the clause requiring travellers from cholera-affected countries to produce proof of vaccination. Trade of food products too gets a clean chit from the WHO.
URL- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2192077.cms