At least six killed after drinking polluted water

At least six people, including two minors and one woman, have been reported killed by gastroenteritis while more than 35 have been admitted to hospital in the central districts of Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, health officials told IRIN on Monday. The patients, mostly children, fell ill after drinking contaminated water from Hamal Lake in the central district of Shahdad Kot, some 400 km north of the provincial capital Karachi. "About 36 people including 26 children are under observation in hospitals. The polluted water of the lake is reported to have caused the problem. However, the samples of lake water and patients' blood and urine have been sent to labs at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad to ascertain further details," Dr Ghulam Nabi Qazi, head of the provincial section of the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from Karachi. On the west bank of the Indus River, the Hamal Lake is a natural depression extending over 10,500 ha near the district of Naseerabad in Balochistan province. Water sources to the lake include hill torrents and a surface drain, according to the Sindh branch of The World Conservation Union (IUCN). The lake supplies some 15,000 people in the surrounding villages with water for drinking and domestic use. "Apparently, it seems as if flood water entered from the Balochistan side into the lake and may have polluted the pool water. However, the results of water samples have still to come and only then will we be able to confirm the actual reason," Dr Farid Ahmed Khuhawar, a medical officer in the Warah district, told IRIN. On Sunday, over 100 patients from the area turned up at hospitals, according to Khuhawar. "Those having more serious conditions were shifted to district hospitals in Larkana and Dadu," he said, noting that their condition was stable. The district health authorities have planned to set up an emergency medical camp at the village of Mirzapur in the district of Shahdad Kot. "Besides emergency medical treatment we also provide packs of oral rehydration solution while a lot of fresh water has already been sent to the area," Khuhawar said. About 27 people, most of them children, were reported to have died in May 2004, after poisonous water from a polluted lake was allowed to enter the water supply of Hyderabad, the second largest city of Sindh province. While more than 2,000 others in the city were treated for gastroenteritis and chronic diarrhoea.