We have it on the authority of DG Health that incidence of diarrhoeal diseases is already up in the flood-affected areas and that it could worsen with a further recession of water. : The DG has done a good job by issuing a timely waiming on a dangerously developing health situation; suffice it to say though, whatever may have been the information upon which he based his assessment, they could not adequately reflect the true state of affection in the country. This is simply because many diarrhoeal cases go unreported.

Indeed the horizonless sheets of water and the emerging slushes of bacterial infestations are a dangerous mix — the first one is anti-transportation and the second the habitat of water-borne diseases. They choke tubewells on top. No wonder, 2,500 doctors and 12,000 health workers are immobilized by the dearth of any special mode of transport. So, let’s ac-tlvlse them first for curative and preventive work — in that order — by providing them with engine-fitted boats. As they reach out to the suffering people with ORT sachets, injection, food supplements and, perhaps, water Eurification tablets the Immediate task will ave been accomplished. However, the basic imperative is to supply them with adequate quantities of drinking water under some special arrangements. For, how even the ORS will be gulped without the help of a Jug of pure drinking water ?

What we are really hoping is that water purification units, complete with raft-like inflatable containers, would be stationed in the affected areas. These will take In local water, purify it and then distribute the same.

Aside from throwing in this life-line of water to the countryside, the Public Health Department must make it a point to sink new tubewells — a string of them — in the water-starved areas.