KARACHI, July 10: Two more persons, belonging to the parts of Gadap Town which were hit by a water-borne disease on Wednesday, died on Thursday. More than 150 others sought medical treatment at the Rural Health Centre in Old Thano Village and a relief camp in Bhiroo Goth.

With the two deaths on Thursday, the total toll in gastro-enteritis cases in the city jumped to 12 during a short period of 14 days. Of the 12, eight belonged to the Landhi Town’s Muslimabad area while the remaining four were the residents of Gadap Town. All of them died reportedly after consuming contaminated water.

Those who died on Thursday at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre were identified as Mai Sukhan, 55, and Abdul Wahid, 45. They were the residents of Gadap Town’s Old Thano Village and had been referred to the JPMC by the staff of the rural health centre there.

Two others — Iqra, 3, and Nabi Bakhsh, 58 — belonging respectively to the Old Thano Village, Union Council Murad Memon, and Bhiroo Goth lost their lives on Wednesday after using water from a tube-well located near the Sammo Lasi pumping station.

“Since Wednesday when gastro-enteritis cases broke out in an epidemic form in Gadap Town’s different localities, as many as 25 people were referred to institutions like the JPMC, while 22 had been admitted to different private hospitals in Malir, Saudabad and Jaffar-i-Tayyar Society,” the Town Nazim Ghulam Murtaza Baluch told Dawn on Thursday.

He said announcements were being made from mosques, requesting the residents of the affected localities to avoid drinking water supplied through pipelines and from the well in Union Council Murad Memon.

The medical superintendent of the RHC, Dr Waheed Panhwar, told Dawn that of the 150 patients, 25 were referred to different hospitals, including the JPMC, National Institute of Child Health and Government Hospital Saudabad. The remaining people were sent home after basic treatment.

According to him, most of the patients who visited the RHC on Thursday belonged to the Old Thano Village, Bhiroo Goth, Mulla Essa Goth, Sumar Goth, Jam Goth, Lasi Goth and Jalbani Goth.

The RHC’s medical superintendent said MNA Sher Mohammad Baluch, MPA Murad Baloch, Gadap Town’s Nazim Ghulam Murtaza Baloch and Naib Nazim Maula Bux Baloch visited the RHC frequently. They extended full cooperation to the doctors in providing treatment to the patients, he added.

Meanwhile, unlike the outbreak which hit the Landhi Town areas late last month, after which the governor of Sindh, adviser to the chief minister on health and several members of the national and provincial assemblies visited the affected areas, very few important leaders went to Old Thano and Bhiroo villages to observe the situation there.

The reason, according to two MPAs of the area who belong to the opposition parties, is simple. The people living in the ill-fated areas do not vote for the parties making up the ruling coalition in Sindh.

One MPA — Abdullah Murad — went to the extent of saying that the residents of the affected localities were being discriminated against. “It is as if the government does not consider us to be at par with the other citizens of the country.”

The other MPA — Sajid Jokhio — said that because of the authorities’ apathy towards their plight they had been forced to fend for themselves. He claimed that the MPAs were providing safe water on their own.

A visit to the Bhiroo and Old Thano villages revealed that no water tanker had been sent there and only a couple of relief and emergency camps had been set up there. Two residents — Nazar M. Baloch and Abdul Majeed — told Dawn that fresh water had been supplied for only a couple of hours on Thursday.

They took Dawn to the tank where water supplied by the water and sanitation department is stored. However, the room from where a portion of the storage tank could be seen had been padlocked.