After malaria, typhoid cases in Ahmedabad on rise, touch 10-year high

The city doesn’t seem to get enough of its share of health problems. A few days back, it was jaundice taking a toll on people’s health and now it is typhoid. The incidence of typhoid in January-August in Ahmedabad has been the highest in the last ten years. Apart from water-borne diseases, mosquito-borne illnesses are also on the rise.

According to data provided by the civic body, 839 patients of typhoid have been treated to date in 2011 with the addition of five more patients on Friday.

In the last ten years, average cases of typhoid registered in the city stand at 395 per annum. Going by this data, the number of typhoid cases has doubled when compared with the average of the last ten years. Last year, the city had registered 778 patients of typhoid.

Physicians blame people with bad personal hygiene for catching infection. Unhygienic food from roadside stalls and eateries combined with the laid back attitude of the civic body increases the spread of typhoid and malaria in city. “People like to eat outside home at food stalls where the vendors fail to maintain hygiene and this is why typhoid cases in city are on the rise,” said Jashwant Darbar, former president of the Ahmedabad Family Physicians Association.

Both, members of the opposition and ruling parties have taken up the issue of contaminated water in the past, but all in vain. The administration, engineering and health departments have all tried to resolve the issues in their own ways, but have not met with the desired results.

The administration wing blames the age old water pipeline network and illegal water connections in the city for the contamination of drinking water.

Darbar said the figures declared by the civic body are of patients admitted in AMC-run hospitals only. If the patients treated at private hospitals, both indoor and outdoor patients are taken into
consideration, then the number of cases will increase at least ten times, he added.    

Dr Suresh Patel, chairman of AMC’s health and solid waste management committee, said the civic body has intensified raids on eateries and destroyed food products prepared in unhygienic conditions. He admitted that the number of typhoid and jaundice cases has  increased but said it could be due to more number of people covered under AMC’s survey and continuous checking as well as growth of population in the city.