Six die due to contaminated water in Sindh

At least six people have died and more than 1,700 others are reported to have fallen ill with gastroenteritis in and around the city of Hyderabad in the southern province of Sindh after contaminated water from a polluted lake was allowed to enter the region's water supply early this month, a senior provincial health official said on Tuesday. "The figure which has been reported to me is six people dead, because of gastroenteritis," Dr Hussain Bux Memon, the director-general of health services for the province, told IRIN from Hyderabad. Memon added that a further 1,718 people had been treated at government and private hospitals for similar illnesses caused allegedly by the release of contaminated water from a nearby lake by local authorities. But allegations by locals that the water had been "poisoned" were completely unfounded, the official maintained. "It's contaminated with salt, not bacteria. The chloride level, the chloride content in the water, rose to very high levels. That's what caused the problem," Memon maintained. He added that local authorities had pinpointed the cause and were working to solve the problem, although the flow of patients from across the largely rural landscape had not lessened. "Actually, despite the improvement of the quality of the water and the content of chloride having gone down, we are still getting patients. The flow of patients is still the same," Memon admitted. "Our job is to provide the best possible facilities to the people. [As far as] the filtration, the quality, or the improvement of the quality of the water is concerned, that we cannot do - that is the job of the agency which is looking after the supply of water in Hyderabad," he explained. Menon noted that out of the more than 1,700 cases there had only been six fatalities because of dehydration, explaining that the deaths occurred because the patients had been brought late to the hospital or not rehydrated properly.