Jaundice cases cross 100 in Kangra

Our Correspondent

Kangra, December 23

The number of jaundice patients today crossed 100 in Kangra town with seven more jaundice patients from Old and New Kangra localities reporting to the Civil Hospital here on the fifth day of the outbreak.

Kangra District Chief Medical Officer BM Gupta said seven new jaundice patients today reported to the hospital, taking their number to 101.

He said one of the patients was admitted to the hospital and the remaining six were provided with medicines and discharged.

The CMO said 15,000 chlorine tablets were received here last night and their distribution continued among the jaundice patients in the affected areas of Old Kangra, New Kangra, Gupt Ganga and Ronkar.

He said house-to-house search in Kangra town for jaundice patients was completed yesterday and would be restarted in a few days from now.

He said an alert had been sounded in the entire district and Block Medical Officers and Senior Medical Officers of the civil hospitals have been directed to keep a strict vigil in their respective areas and coordinate with the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) authorities to get chlorinated water supplied to the people and report any break-out of jaundice in any part of the district immediately.

Residents alleged that the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) authorities were claiming that the water supply was not contaminated. They demanded that the government should fix up the responsibility of the officials whose dereliction of duty had left more than 100 people down with jaundice.

The outbreak was reported from Old Kangra on December 18 and still, patients are trickling into the hospital but authorities are claiming that the situation is under control.