Death chasing evacuees right from Bangladesh
By a Staff Reporter, Death is trailing the evacuees from Bangladesh sheltered in India.
According to a World Health Organization report available in Calcutta on Wednesday, a cholera epidemic had left 3,000 dead in West Bengal and 10,000 hospitalized.
Despite the best efforts by the city authorities to launch an anti-cholera campaign chances of an outbreak of the disease in an epidemic form in Calcutta looks are still there especially in view of the unabated influx of evacuees to the Salt Lake area and adjoining places.
At least 700 evacuees were moved in lorries from Deganga to the Salt Lake camps on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Calcutta Corporation has set up five inoculation camps-two at Sealdah Station and three in the Cossipore area which are the main points of entry of Bangladesh evacuees.
Five persons died of cholera in the Salt Lake evacuees camps on Wednesday according to unofficial reports. A number of cholera attacks during the last few days were also reported from Manicktolla and Kalighat.
In an interview on Wednesday the Mayor Mr. Shyamsundar Gupta said that the corporation had its 350-odd inoculators ready to rush to bustee areas which were particularly prone to an outbreak of cholera.
Mr. Gupta said that about 100,000 evacuees had taken shelter in the city and its outlying areas. The number included those camping at Salt Lake. Among the municipal areas where evacuees had spread were Manicktolla, Ultadanga and Cossipore.
All these have pinpointed the need for the immunization of the city’s population, he said. The State Government has also taken note of this. On Saturday, the Mayor will meet representatives of the Metropolitan Immunization office to work out the details of a coordinated programme for inoculation and immunization.
The State Government has agreed to supply the required quantity of bleaching powder and a jet syringe with which 750 people can be inoculated at a time.
The Mayor said that of the five inoculation camps one each had been opened at Sealdah North South and Dum Dum stations. The remaining two were on Jessore Road and B T Road.
The Mayor said that many evacuees who had taken shelter with their friends and relations in the heart of the city were in all probability carrying cholera germs. But it was very difficult to isolate them.
The Naxalite menace somehow stands in the way of implementation of the cholera inoculation programme of the Calcutta Corporation.
The Chairman of the Standing Health Committee of the civic body and its Chief Medical Officer told Dr. Zainul Abedin that they had decided to start inoculation in the bustee areas of the city immediately. The drive is expected to be completed within 10 days or so. The ampoules would be supplied by the State Government.
They informed the Minister that their staff who would be detailed for this work had already informed them that they would not go to four areas in the city as those areas are dominated by the Naxalites.
Meanwhile the World Health Organization has geared up its machinery to maintain uninterrupted flow of medicines chiefly the cholera vaccines to Calcutta.
A Royal Air Force aircraft carrying nine tons of medical supplies left Geneva on Wednesday for India. Another one carrying 14 tons of supplies is due to leave today.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 10.06.1971