Over 50,000 diarrhoea patients in Barishal div

The number of diarrhoea patients across the Barishal division has crossed 50,000.

Between 1 January and 10 May, at least 50,820 diarrhoea patients received treatment at hospitals across the six districts under the division.

More than 50 per cent of the patients were infected solely in April while 10 per cent in the first 10 days of May. That means, 62 per cent of the patients received treatment in the last 40 days.

The government records show that at least 19 diarrhoea patients had died in Barishal division so far.

However, some non-government sources recorded 36 diarrhoea deaths –31 in April and five till 10 May.

Directorate General of Health Service’s Barishal divisional officials said that there was no previous record of such a magnitude of diarrhoea and diarrhoea deaths across Barishal in two decades.

DGHS’s divisional level sources said at least 440 patients got admitted to hospitals across six districts under the Barishal division within 24 hours till 10 May morning.

With 13,245 diarrhoea patients so far, Bhola has been considered as the most affected district, followed by Patuakhali with 10,621 patients, Barguna with 8,017 patients, Barishal with 6,820 patients, Pirojpur with 6,494 patients and Jhalakhati with 5,633 patients.

Health service people presume that the actual number of diarrhoea patients was higher than the official recorda as most of the patients had received treatment at their home instead of hospital.

Shyamal Krishna Mandal, assistant director at DGHS, told Prothom Alo that the diarrhoea outbreak started to decline since the last week. Earlier, the average daily count of diarrhoea patients was around 1,500.

“It will take some more time to bring diarrhoea situation under control,” he said.