Apr 29 : At least 52 people died of diarrhoea in several villages in Thanchi and Ruma upazilas of Bandarban district during a period of 20 days recently.
About 7,000 others were attacked with the disease during the period.
Tribal leaders and Mouza headmen told this correspondent on April 27 that diarrhoea had taken a serious turn in several villages in the two upazilas during the last three weeks, claiming 52 lives and attacking 7,00 others. Crisis of safe drinking water and adverse climatic conditions helped the outbreak of the disease in an epidemic form, they added.
They alleged that the remote villages under the two upazilas remained out of the healthcare facilities for long two years. As a result the people attacked with the disease can not undergo proper medical treatment, aggravating the diarrhoea situation.
Civil Surgeon of Bandarban Dr. Mahfuzur Rahman told this correspondent that after the disease had broken out he visited the affected villages in the two upazilas and that held an emergency meeting with the physicians of the Sadar Hospital on April 26 to devise ways and means to combat the disease.
He informed that 500 people attacked with diarrhoea received medical treatment from five special medical teams and a hospital at the Balipara BDR zonal headquarters. Four medical teams had been deployed in four unions in Thanchi upazila to give treatment to the diarrhoea affected people.
Meanwhile the hill district council donated 200 bags of hydro saline to the
district health department to supply those among the affected people.