Eating unhygienic food can leave you battling for life, as a 31-year-old resident of Grant Road, Sunny Kothari, found out recently.
Eating unhygienic food can leave you battling for life, as a 31-year-old resident of Grant Road, Sunny Kothari, found out recently. Eating roadside chaat and bhel puri had cost him dear. After a street food-eating spree, Kothari ended up in Bhatia Hospital at Tardeo, South Mumbai. "My son fell ill after consuming roadside food at Chowpatty on March 31. At 2 am, he had excruciating pain in the stomach and started passing blood in his stool," said Kothari's father Jayantilal. Shockingly, for the past three days, Kothari has to visit the toilet thirty times in a day. He is severely dehydrated and has lost up to three kilos in weight, said Jayantilal. Dr Pratit Samdani, consultant physician at Bhatia Hospital, said that Kothari is suffering from viral diarrhoea caused by the infamous rotavirus. "Rotavirus breeds in contaminated water and food. It affects adults and children alike, but vaccination against it is only available for paediatric cases. Adults have no shield against the virus," said Dr Samdani.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) health department data states that nearly 900 patients get admitted in three major hospitals of the city – KEM, Nair and Sion, each month, with gastroenteritis or diarrhoea. An equal number of them may be getting admitted in city-based private hospitals, say experts.
With the rise in temperatures, BMC's health department fears that the situation will spiral out of hand. BMC's epidemiologist Dr Mangala Gomare said that usually, by July each year, the number of patients suffering from food- and water-borne illnesses doubles. "Gradually, the cases of diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera increase. In July, for instance, the numbers doubled and we were tending to about 2,000 cases of diarrhoea each month," said Dr Gomare.
"Food poisoning is very common in summers and subsequently monsoons. Patients come with abdominal cramps, bleeding in the stool, severe vomiting and dehydration. If they are not tended to in a timely way, they may die of dehydration and hypo-volumic shock caused by dwindling fluids in the body," said Dr Samdani.
He added, "Another patient in his forties who suffered from diarrhoea suffered from severe dehydration as well. Because he did not take proper medication and enough water, over a few weeks his kidneys had shrunk and he had gone into acute kidney failure. He is currently on dialysis. If he would have further delayed coming to us, it would have been difficult to revive him. Illnesses due to contaminated food can spiral into unimaginable proportions and become fatal at times."
Dr Hemant Gupta, professor, medicine department at Sir JJ Group of Hospitals in Byculla, said, "Sometimes patients need to be admitted, some we treat through our outpatient department. A city like Mumbai is highly populated and there are industries around the city. Water reservoirs are contaminated by leaking sewerage lines. This poses hazards to public in the form of food poisoning. Mumbaikars are also used to eating street food exposed to flies, which causes infection," said Dr Gupta. "Avoid street food and boil water before drinking," he added.
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