The three hundred bottles of water that the rural municipality had ordered for the village on Monday evening were not distributed until Tuesday evening.
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There is a shortage of clean drinking water in Sada Tole, Chhinnamasta Rural Municipality-5, Saptari, where three people have died of diarrhea. However, the three hundred bottles of water that the rural municipality had ordered for them on Monday evening have not been distributed even by Tuesday evening.
The water is stored in a pile at the Kochabkhari health post (Lokram). There are only three taps in the area, where 90 extremely poor families live. Even though the water around the taps is stagnant and muddy, they are forced to drink, bathe, wash clothes and wash dishes from the taps. However, the water they drink has not yet been tested.
The village council is also trying to clean the village, which has no toilets. So far, 80 diarrhea patients have been seen in the village, but only 11 stool samples have been tested using RDT (Rapid Diagnostic Test). Five of them tested positive for cholera (Cholera Vibrio cholerae), and all five were admitted to Gajendra Narayan Singh Hospital, Rajbiraj, for treatment. Their stool samples have been sent to the Provincial Public Health Laboratory in Janakpur for culture testing, said Senior Ahab Dipendra Prasad Yadav, head of the rural municipality's health branch. Their culture reports have not yet arrived.
Although four people whose health condition improved after treatment were discharged on Tuesday, the source of the infection could not be confirmed till Tuesday. Clean water has not been distributed either. Rural municipality chairman Bidyananda Chaudhary said that the water has been sent for testing. He said that they have kept it in preparation for distributing water to the tole if the source of cholera is found in drinking water. However, there is an immediate need for clean drinking water, sanitation and temporary toilets in the tole.
Since Saturday, patients with diarrhea have shown improvement in their health condition after taking medicine. However, two more patients with diarrhea were added on Tuesday. To control the infection, the rural municipality has ordered people not to go out except for essential work and closed schools there, so the locals, who are afraid due to lack of public awareness, are now reluctant to disclose their symptoms. Informing that health workers deployed in the village are monitoring the situation, Chairman Chaudhary said that they have to wait for four to four hours for sample collection.
‘Since they do not want to give samples, it is a problem to do RDT, but it takes more time for us to explain it to them,’ he said. He said that the health post there is now providing 24-hour service.
