other, private companies sold chlorine tablets at exorbitant rates and people of effluent class happily purchased them while others were neither aware nor could afford to spend a lot of money to purify potable water.
“I would advise people to use common bleach or bleaching powder in their underground and overhead tanks to disinfect the water,” he advised.
“Bleach contains chlorine and can be used to kill harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites and make the water safe for household purposes.”
Doctors and health experts said Naegleria fowleri usually entered the brain and attacked the nervous system when infected water was ingested through the nasal cavity while bathing, swimming or making ablution.
They said boiled or self-chlorinated water should be used for making ablution and advised people to make sure that water was not ingested by them, especially children, while bathing and swimming.
On the other hand, the managing director of the KWSB or the body’s spokesman could not be approached for comment despite repeated attempts.
However, a chief engineer rejected the health department’s claims and said chlorine was indeed added to the water supply. He claimed that by the time the water reached the overhead and underground tanks of the consumers, the chemical was evaporated from the supply because it repeatedly came in contact with air.
“People should purchase chlorine tablets from the market and put them in their water tanks frequently cine their storage facilities are improper and the chemical cannot stay in water for long,” said Noor Muhammad Chohan, the chief engineer (engineer and mechanical) at the KWSB.
He also rejected the Naegleria fowleri committee’s report of 12 deaths in Karachi due to the parasitic infection, claiming that the disease had claimed only 7 or 8 lives in the entire province. He said some deaths were reported from the interior of Sindh, not just from Karachi.
To a query, he said KWSB regularly mixed chlorine in water supply at its pumping stations and they had surveyed all the pumping stations in the city for its presence, and found the level of chemicals to be adequate.
“We have prepared a detailed report and results of our survey and we are going to submit it to the authorities on Friday,” he said.