Daily Times

An extensive drive had been launched to prevent the rising outbreak of jaundice in lake-side Mirpur city with full collective efforts by the district administration, State health department, and public health engineering department, it was officially said. “In the wake of continual further improvement to this direction, all the hotels, shops and food vendors have been given a week to clean their water tanks immediately installing filters to ensure supply of hygienic drinking water,” Deputy Commissioner Ch. Amjad Iqbal said.

“Action will be taken against involved restaurants and the sellers of other food items,” the DC said while addressing an emergency meeting of the concerned departments held late Wednesday in the wake of the steps to combat the disease in the city and the rest of the district. “It was decided in the meeting that the Department of Public Health Engineering will gradually clean all the supply tanks in the city. Citizens should clean the water tanks of their homes and use air or filtered water because of the spread of jaundice due to cleaning, the supply of water from the main water tank supplying to different sectors would be stopped for two days from May 5. Therefore, the citizens should clean the tanks of their houses and store water beforehand.”

The meeting decided to continue stringent measures preventive measures for the eradication of jaundice disease in the lakeside Mirpur district and the rest of the city. In the meeting, DHO Dr. Fida Hussain Raja, Assistant Commissioner Sardar Abdul Qadir Khan, Chief Officer Maghees Riaz, XEN Public Health Engineering Raja Inamullah Khan, DMS Dr. Iram Batul, Information Officer Muhammad Javed Malik, Municipal Magistrate Sheikh Zahid Majeed, SDO Raja Hafeez Ur Rahman, Assistant Director Livestock Dr. Khalid Qayyum Butt, SDO Public Health Engineering Syed Hyder Ali, Engineer Yasir Ahmed of PHE participated.

The meeting was informed about the progress of lab testing of water supply tanks, the accuracy of water pipes, and wall leakage at different places by XEN of Public Health Engineering Raja Inamullah Khan for the last month. All the main tanks of the city have been initially cleaned with chlorine, while from May 05 every other main tank is being practically cleaned, for which every tank will be cleaned in two days. The water supply will be suspended for two days in the city. Tests of water samples are being conducted one after another, he directed. The tests of jaundice patients have revealed that the cases of hepatitis A and E are high, which is the main reason for using polluted water.The administration, in collaboration with the public health department, municipality, and public health engineering, will take water samples and test them for the supply of drinking water throughout the city, he added.