Solan water samples free of hepatitis-E virus: Lab report

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 9

With the latest report of the Pune-based National Virology Lab (NVL) declaring the water samples of the Ashwani Khud Water Supply Scheme negative for hepatitis-E , the sustained efforts of the officials of the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department have finally worked.

Hemant Tanwar, Executive Engineer of the IPH Department, while confirming the news, said two samples of raw and treated water drawn by the NVL officials last week had been declared negative for hepatitis-E in a report received today. As a precaution, they would conduct one more sampling of the water and once similar reports were received from the NVL, the Department would decide on distributing this water in Solan.

He said sustained efforts of the staff and continuous and regular monitoring had helped them plug the loopholes. They would not take any chances to give rise to any such eventuality in the future and hence, as a measure to be doubly sure, fresh samples would be sent to the lab on Saturday.

With the state lacking any lab to check the presence of hepatitis-E virus, the exercise to get water samples tested from NVL Pune was a tedious task, required technical formalities and acted as a deterrent for regular testing. 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 outbreak of such a disease did not take the state by surprise in the future, an official said.

Meanwhile, six new cases of jaundice were detected in Solan today, taking the number of such cases to 679. The number of cases coming up on a daily basis is on a decline now, as earlier the figure hovered in double figures, said Dr NK Gupta, Medical Officer, Health.