Hyderabad, Oct 7 :
After the Floods now it is the turn of infectious diseases to wreak havoc in the flood- hit areas of Andhra Pradesh. The towns and villages which were submerged under water for the last four or five days in the districts of Mahabobnagar, Kurnool, Kadapa, Krishna and Guntur districts are now turning into the breeding grounds for diseases like acute diarrhoea , malaria, and viral fevers.
With the health staff not in a position to reach the interior villages due to damaged roads and disrupted traffic, people fear that epidemics may break out in these flood-hit regions if precautionary measures are not taken and preventive medicines are not supplied. Cases of diarrhoea have already been reported in the hospitals of these flood-hit regions. According to the medical officers if the slush and animal carcasses are not cleared immediately, the condition could may turn out to be more severe.
Infections can spread like any thing because debris and the slush in large areas of the flood-hit regions are still not yet cleared. Treatment can be provided to the infected people but unless they are supplemented by clean surroundings and hygienic drinking water all the efforts to keep them away from the infectious diseases will go in the drain, bemoaned a medical officer.
As per reports reaching Hyderabad, chlorine tablets and bleaching powder packets have been distributed in the flood hit areas. But people living in the accessible regions received them while some living in the interior villages did not receive any such help. The irony is that in places like Kurnool and Mahaboobnagar, the health officials who are involved in the health camps orgainzed by the Government are themselves hit by these infectious diseases.