Diarrhoea outbreak: Vijayanand visits Gurla

Vizianagaram: Senior IAS officer and special chief secretary K Vijayand (energy) visited Gurla mandal where diarrhoea claimed 14 lives in the past 10 days. The diarrhoea has spread to several mandals triggering panic among the people. Following surge in cases, Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday instructed Vijayanand to visit Gurla and enquire about the causes for the spread of disease.

On the other hand, Deputy Chief Minister K Pawan Kalyan also visited the village on Monday and spoke to the people.

Vijayanand conducted a review with district officials at the collectorate on Tuesday. He raised several questions in connection with rural water supply system, sanitation in the village and how the district mechanism responded soon after the cases of diarrhoea came to light.

RWS superintending engineer Umasankar said that there is a possibility of water contamination in the villages and drinking water pipelines may have to be changed. In response, Vijayanand sought lab reports of water quality form the RWS department.

District panchayat officer K Venkateswara Rao said only 180 households out of 918 houses in the village have no toilets. But some families are not using the toilets instead using them as storerooms.

Later, Vijayanand visited Gurla and walked around the village, observed sanitation, drinking water supply system. He interacted with locals and asked how the government has responded after the outbreak.

Cheepurupalli RDO Satyavani and district medical and health officer (DMHO) M Bhaskara Rao explained the measures they had taken in the past one week in dealing with the Situation. Vijayanand instructed the DMHO to prepare a report with preventive measures to be taken to control such situations in future.

Collector B R Ambedkar and other officials accompanied Vijayanand during his visit and took part in the review.