Kishoreganj, a district ringed by haor wetlands, is in the grip of a diarrhoea outbreak. In the first nine months of the year 24,983 people were treated in hospital for diarrhoea, and one died. On Monday, 5 October, 180 diarrhoea patients were in the district's 15 hospitals, 107 of them admitted that day.
Doctors and nurses are also struggling with dengue and measles. According to the health department, 44 people in the district were infected with dengue in the latest 24 hours, and another 16 were in hospital with measles symptoms.
From the start of the year to 5 October, 1,811 dengue cases were recorded in the district, with one death. Of 215 confirmed measles patients this year one died, as did one of 2,889 suspected cases.
Some 380 people are now in the district's 16 public and private hospitals with infectious diseases: 133 with dengue, 67 with suspected measles and 180 with diarrhoea. Shaheed Syed Nazrul Islam Medical College Hospital carries the heaviest load, with 32 dengue, 26 measles and 10 diarrhoea patients; Kishoreganj 250-bed General Hospital is treating 17 dengue and 26 diarrhoea patients.
Sattar, whose wife Khadija Begum is a diarrhoea patient at the General Hospital, said: "We have to buy various medicines outside. But we found no shortage of saline."
Civil Surgeon Mohammad Saidur Rahman said diarrhoea is caused mainly by rotavirus and bacteria, and that the government is giving a trial vaccine against it in Hossainpur, Karimganj and Tarail upazilas. There is no shortfall in dengue and measles care, he said, with dengue test kits, saline and medicines in stock.
The report is by Sajan Ahmed Papon in Kishoreganj.
Photo: Ahad Adnan / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Source: Ajker Patrika
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