Gastro claims 7 at Haji Malang

“It took me and the trustees until late on July 10 to realise that we had an epidemic on our hands,” pointed out thesarpanch of the Sultanpura village, Suresh J Patil, under which the shrine falls. “We got the information from the trustees around 1900 hrs,” he pointed out. But he has no answer why he informed the Thane health directorate and not the Mangrul PHC which is not even a km and a half away.

Without wanting to be quoted the staff at the PHC told Express Newsline that they are well-equipped to take care of a problem like this. “In the precious time spent for help to arrive form Thane we could have helped save at least a few lives,” they pointed out. As soon as the Thane directorate health authorities arrived atop the fort, a special emergency ward was started and a surveillance of suspected cases has been undertaken. “We have not come across any more cases,” pointed out the District Health Officer BR Gholap who was personally supervising all the arrangements.

He informed that the observation of patients will continue and said, “prima facie it looks like five of the cases are gastro cases while itcannot be conclusively said that the other cases may not have been caused by other causes.” He however pointed out that the post mortem reports which are awaited will make this clear. Until the time of going to press no new cases had been discovered. Like Kokanipada in Thane city, here too the affected community were not particular about where they got their drinking water from. The beggars also relieve themselves along the hill side not far from the brooks and water falls from where they use the water. PSI SS Janrao of the Ulhasnagar Hill Line police station who is handling the case gave the names of all the deceased. They are: Kanaka Akka (55), Nurjehan Begum (29), Varis M Shiekh (6), Gopal (60), Ibrahim Sheikh (55), Shivmurat (55) and Suresh (22).