BALANGIR: A suspected outbreak of diarrhoea in five wards of Subarnapur town has alarmed locals.Over the past three days, 300 people have been affected by the disease, a health official said.On Tuesday, 30 residents of Thanapatipara, Dhibarpara, Patabhadi, Kalinganagar and Nuapara were taken to the district headquarters hospital after complaining of vomiting and loose motion.Bijayalakshmi Guru, the chief district medical officer of Subarnapur, said, “Till today (Thursday), 133 patients have been admitted to the hospital for treatment. The situation is under control and all the patients are stable.”“We have engaged doctors from outside the district to meet the shortage of physicians. We suspect it to be diarrhoea, caused by an intake of contaminated water. We have sent samples collected from the sick patients to Santha Bhimabhoi Medical College and Hospital in Balangir for identification of the disease,” said Guru.The Subarnapur municipality supplies the town with pre-treated drinking water directly from the Mahanadi near Dasamati ghat. Now, there is no intake well to treat the water. Recently, the public health and engineering organisation (PHEO) began laying new pipes in the town but the project is yet to be complete.The PHEO has deployed 21 water tankers to meet the needs of the locals. Parbati Mohan Parida, executive engineer, PHEO, said, “Teams have been formed to collect drinking water samples for testing.”“So far, we have not found any contamination in the water samples collected from the different locations of the affected areas. Our team is inspecting the pipelines for possible leakage,” said Parida.A central team has arrived in Subarnapur to find the cause of the outbreak. “We will continue to supply drinking water by tankers till the situation eases,” Parida added.

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