Hyderabad: After suspected contaminated water caused the death of a person and resulted in over 80 people being hospitalised, the Water Board, which was under the scanner, investigated the incident and gave itself a clean chit.
The Water Board had sent samples of water samples from Vaddera Basti, Guttala Begumpet in Madhapur, where the death occurred, to its own quality assurance and testing wing in Mehdipatnam. The lab said there was no issue with the water sample.
The health department sent samples to the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM), Narayanguda, which is also run by the government. The IPM also declared the water safe.
Meanwhile, on Monday, another person who consumed polluted water in Madhapur died after the contamination aggravated her existing kidney issues.
On Thursday last, at Vaddera Basti, one person died and 60 were hospitalised after drinking water which was being contaminated by drainage for as long as four months. Since then, 24 more people from the slum have been hospitalised.
As per the test results, the water was free of coliform, faecal coliform and E Coli bacteria.
Apart from this, other parameters like pH, turbidity, alkalinity and hardness, as well as level of chemicals such as ammonical nitrogen, nitrite, flouride, chlorides, were found satisfactory in both the tests.
District Medical & Health Officer (DMHO), Ranga Reddy, Dr Swarajya Laxmi said if people continued to get infected, water samples could be sent for testing again to some other facility.
The 75-year-old woman who succumbed on Monday was initially admitted at the Kondapur area hospital. Her condition became critical as she was diabetic and hypertensive, and she was referred to Gandhi Hospital on Friday as the Kondapur hospital did not have the facilities to treat her.
“Diabetes is an associated condition which can lead to morbidity, so such patients can’t tolerate dehydration. The earlier person who had died was an alcoholic and his liver was compromised,” the DMHO said.
On Monday, 10 more people from the Vaddera Basti, Madhapur, were admitted to the Kondapur Hospital, superintendent Dr Varadha Chary said. He said 32 people from the area were admitted at the hospital, of which 11 were
