THATTA, Aug 13: Gastroenteritis has claimed the lives of eight people in a week, figures gathered by this correspondent from different hospitals of the district said.

Hundreds of people are infected by other water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, malaria and conjunctivitis. The patients are being treated at various government and private hospitals.

Those who died due the disease, included Punhoon Mallah and his two sons, Ali Ahmed Mallah, 35, and Noor Ahmed Mallah, 18, the residents of Murtaza Shaikh village, union council, Keenjhar, Gulshan, 10, Basheeran Shaikh, Suleman Shaikh, a resident of Islampur Mohalla, Thatta, Usoo Palejo of a village near Bannu and Saleh Jokhio, a resident of Ward No 3, Thatta.

Talking to Dawn Taluka Hospital Mirpur Bathoro MS Dr Murtaza Khwaja said out of 4810 patients, admitted to the Taluka Hospital since over one week, 85 were diagnosed with diarrhoea, and 35 of dysentery.

At Taluka Hospital Jati, 32 per cent of total patients were suspected of malarial fever and 15 per cent of mild to moderate diarrhoea.

At Taluka Hospital Sujawal, Taluka Hospital Mirpur Sakro, Basic Health Centre Bannu, Daro and Sonda, the enrolment of patients was reported much higher than rest of the district.

This correspondent visited the civil hospital Makli and found dozens of diarrhoea patients. The hospital’s MS, Dr Ashfaque Qureshi, was out of station. Unhygienic condition of the hospital was self-evident of the administration’s apathy.

EDO health Dr Ghulam Haider Arain said contamination of drinking water throughout the nine talukas, particularly after rains, was the main cause of the outbreak.

He said the department was distributing water purifying tablets Aqua among people in coastal areas and had appealed to the World Health Organisation for an assistance of 500,000 Aqua tablets for the district. He said the Sindh Relief Commission has released one million rupees and equal amount was to be released to the Thatta health department.

The adviser to the Sindh chief minister on health Noman Saigal has directed the director Malaria Control Sindh, Dr Muzaffar Abbasi, to provide an anti-malarial spray machine to health department.