3rd water sample from Ashwani Khud also fails

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, January 20

With the third sample of raw water drawn from the Ashwani Khud also testing positive for Hepatitis A virus in the Pune-based National Virology Lab (NVL), the lifting of water from this source will continue to remain suspended.

Drawn on January 13, after the two initial samples had tested positive for hepatitis, the staff of the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) had undertaken hyper-chlorination of the water to kill this virus. The measure, however, has failed to prove productive as the virus continues to thrive in the untreated water. Executive Engineer of the IPH was not available for comments.

Dr NK Gupta, Medical Officer, Health, who was closely monitoring the situation from the health point of view, said the presence of hepatitis virus was an indication of the contamination of the drinking water with sewage.

The first samples of untreated water which was drawn on December 20 was found contaminated with Hepatitis-E virus while the second samples drawn on January 5 was found infected with Hepatitis-A virus.

With the state lacking the requisite technical facilities to check the presence of hepatitis-E virus, the exercise to get water samples tested from NVL Pune was a tedious task requiring technical formalities. This acted as a deterrent for regular testing of water.

The state should not only develop such a lab but a protocol to test drinking water at regular intervals should also be put in place to ensure that such disease outbreak was checked, pointed out an official.

Since more than 800 cases of jaundice had surfaced in Solan last year the district administration was taking no chance and the supply of drinking water from this source had been put on hold.

Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kanwar said supply of water would remain suspended till at least three samples of water were found free from virus. He urged the people to boil water for at least 15 minutes before consumption as a precautionary measure.

Shortage of water was persisting in the town as major chunk of the water was lifted from the Ashwani Khud supply scheme.