16 new jaundice cases in Kangra

Ashok Raina

Kangra, December 22

With 16 more jaundice patients detected today from 10 localities of Kangra town and its suburbs, the number of jaundice patients identified during the past four days reached 94, including 62 children.

Kangra district surveillance officer Dr RK Sood confirmed the number, but cautioned that 10 of them were still undergoing tests to confirm jaundice.

He said that youngest patient was Ritika (7) from New Kangra and oldest Saroj (40) from Scot village.

He said that among the 16, six were confirmed jaundice cases. He said that new cases were reported from Old and New Kangra, Mandir Bazaar, Gurkhari, Lunj, Scot, Pragpur Kachiari, Nather, Dhaulatpur and College Road. He said that the concentration of Bilirubin pigment more than 1.2 mg per cent in blood is jaundice.

He said that a house-to-house search of the 10,000 population of Kangra town was completed today and a fresh survey to search fresh jaundice cases would start after a week. He claimed that during the search, no new cases were detected. All the fresh cases that were reported today approached the hospital on their own.

Residents alleged that maintaining the quality of the water supplied to people totally depended on the fitter of the IPH Department as no officer checked his work.