Locals blame bad condition of drainage system and leakage of water supply pipes for outbreak
Rourkela Additional District Magistrate Shubhakar Mohapatra visits various health and healing centres in the city on December 21. Photo: @RourkelaMC / X At least 13 people are feared to have lost their lives due to a cholera outbreak in Odisha’s steel city of Rourkela since December 11, 2023. The state government has confirmed six deaths till now.
On December 22, 2023, 42-year-old Pankaj Mondal succumbed to his illness in a Rourkela-based private hospital. Mondal’s brother said Pankaj had been admitted to the hospital after a bout of dysentery.
The disease has reportedly spread to around 40 wards of the city. Around 1,500 people have been affected over 10 days.
The government has made arrangements for medicines. Meanwhile, doctors from the Sundargarh Medical College and Cuttack’s SCB Medical College have been pressed into service to deal with the situation. Sufficient halogen tablets and ORS pouches had been provided to the affected wards, officials said.
The presence of vibrio cholerae (a bacteria that causes cholera), E coli and some other unknown infectants was found in several samples. These included those taken from water sources in the wards, stool samples and rectal swab samples, officials said.
Locals blamed the bad condition of the drainage system and leakage of water supply pipes for the outbreak. They alleged that supply of almost untreated water was a major trigger for the outbreak.
Odisha’s health and family welfare secretary Shalini Pandit, alongwith housing and urban development secretary G Mathivathanan, visited Rourkela on December 20 to assess the situation.
A team from the Regional Medical Researcher Centre in Bhubaneswar is in Rourkela to ascertain the reason for the spread of the outbreak.
Doctors and medical staff have been working round-the-clock to treat the patients with the help of civic authorities and local volunteers. Besides, steps are being taken by the civic authorities to identify and seal the water contamination points.
Nine mobile teams have been pressed into service to go door-to-door in the affected wards to check people’s health, make them aware of the health hazard as well as get feedback on improving the situation.
Odisha public health director Niranjan Mishra confirmed six deaths due to cholera and diarrhoea in government hospitals, to the media. He added that the government was examining the cause of some other deaths occurring in private hospitals. Mishra said the situation has improved after health interventions.
“Admission to hospitals has come down while admission of serious patients has drastically reduced. A good sign is that many people are coming on their own for checkups and early treatment. Adequate number of doctors and drugs has been made available for the people,” he said.
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