Manori to get BMC water

More than 100 persons have been admitted to various private and municipal hospitals so far, while 684 persons have been cured of the illness.

But the illness hasn’t been detected yet, and blood samples have been sent to the Institute of Virology at Pune for tests. The Haffkine Institute will also testsamples of blood, informed health committee chairman Sardar Tara Singh, who accompanied Shetty. Some persons have also been kept under observation in municipal hospitals. Tests of 61 blood samples for malaria have tested negative.

Ever since the `fever’ gripped the village, employees of the solid waste department have been clearing garbage regularly, and Excell, a private organisation, has now joined in to fight the menace of mosquitoes and flies. For the last three days, Excell’s volunteers have been spraying insecticides and urging residents to plant Tulsi saplings outside their homes, because seeds of the plant help in purifying water. They have also got fishes from Pondicherry which eat the larva of mosquitoes and are placing these fishes in the water tanks from which villagers get their drinking water. Villagers informed they still drink water from one of the 12 wells carrying contaminated water, because the six water tankers supplied by BMC every day are not enough.

“The villagers are forced todrink water from the wells, though they know it is contaminated,” said Baby Peter Lakri, a local. Five members of Lakri’s family had taken ill with the `mysterious fever,’ but they have all recovered now.

Another local, Ashok Bhandari, informed the residents have all along been pleading with local MLA Hemendra Mehta to get water supply for them, but nobody thought of it till this illness claimed three lives.

Health officials don’t entirely dismiss the residents’ claim that three persons died due to the `mysterious fever,’ but they feel two women died due to old age and say it hasn’t yet been established that the third person died due to the fever.

According to the survey of the 641 houses carried out by BMC officials, persons living close to the seashore and those belonging to the lower economic strata have been affected the most.