Efforts needed to avoid outbreak of gastro

Rawalpindi: Outbreaks of summer season diseases such as gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A & E, etc., may hit the population if effective prevention and control measures are not adopted seriously both at the community and the individual level.

Every year, the three teaching hospitals along with healthcare facilities in private sector in town start receiving an extraordinary burden of patients with gastro and like infections as soon as the summer starts and according to health experts, it is so mainly because the majority of the population is unaware of the preventive measures needed to avoid summer related gastrointestinal infections.

Experts say that poor sanitary conditions prevailing in various localities of the district, supply of contaminated and non-chlorinated water to residents and consumption of unhygienic food play a major role in spread of gastroenteritis and bacterial infections because bacteria grow faster in hot and humid environments.

According to health experts, to avoid gastrointestinal diseases, uninterrupted chlorination of water should be ensured at all main sources of water supply including wells in rural areas of the district. Monitoring of water supplies must be intensified and frequent sampling of water for bacteriological examination be ensured. Samples of Soda water and ice prepared at commercial level should be collected from the factories and sent to laboratory for examination.

It is important that contaminated foodstuff being served at a number of local hotels, restaurants and vendors may cause spread of gastroenteritis and if proper action is not taken in time, the population may face an outbreak of gastroenteritis in the coming days. Strict measures should be adopted to check the sale of rotten fruits and open cut fruits in unhygienic conditions.

Experts believe that to avoid an outbreak of gastroenteritis, awareness campaigns must be launched against summer season hazards through electronic and print media. Without educating the public on how to avoid gastro and like infections, it is hardly possible to avoid outbreaks of like infections in the coming days.

Water and food discipline must be adopted in order to avoid summer season health hazards. As far as water discipline is concerned, all drinking water needs to be made safe for drinking. This can be done either by boiling or chlorination of water with chlorine tablets or bleaching powder. The ice factories in the region have already started production and it is time for the concerned authorities to monitor the quality of ice being prepared at commercial level.