Red alert on hepatitis

Health officials say next two weeks critical

Illicit food outlets closed

By Nadia Fazlulhaq

Thirteen eating houses and restaurants within the Kandy Municipal Council (KMC) limits have been closed temporarily because of unhygienic food practices and for not using purified water in the preparation of food.

“We have given their owners two options - either to close the eating houses temporarily or convert them into shops selling groceries or other products as they don’t have proper water supplies,” KMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Asoka Senarath said.

He said the KMC had given these shop spaces not to sell food products but to sell other goods but their owners had converted these shops into eating-houses and restaurants and have used water from public toilets, taps and other shops.

Dr. Senarath said there was not much risk of Hepatitis A fever but the public should be careful about their food and water intake, as well as personal hygiene.

“Only one case was reported from Kandy. Even though the patient is from Anniewatte, Kandy, he is a student of the Colombo University. So it’s impossible to say whether he contracted it in Kandy as he travels regularly from Colombo to Kandy,” he said.

“Most eating-houses do not use purified water, some use well water so we chlorinate them according to accepted standards. In some eating houses the food is badly exposed.
We are continuing to monitor shops in these areas” he said.

A six-member team consisting of four Municipal health officials and two officers from the Water Supply and Drainage Board will conduct raids and inspect hotels, restaurants and eating-houses.

Health officials in Kandy have warned people to be extra careful in the coming weeks as there was a possibility of an increase in the number of hepatitis cases there.

The fresh warning came in the wake of over 1000 cases of hepatitis being reported from mainly the Gampola area and also other areas in the Central Province. Central Province Health Director Dr. Shanthi Samarasinghe told the Kandy Times that though a fewer number of hepatitis cases was reported on Friday, there could be an increase in the next two weeks because the incubation period of the disease was four weeks.

She said it was only two weeks since the disease broke out and there may still be people who are yet to show the symptoms of the disease. She said though health authorities have introduced a number of precautionary measures, people must first and foremost drink clean boiled water.

Dr. Samarasinghe said 60 percent of the hepatitis patients so far reported were school children and added parents should see their children take boiled water to school with them rather than drink water available at the school.

Dr. Samarasinghe stressed the importance of people eating home-cooked food and drinking boiled water while also asking them to raise personal hygienic standards. Statistics have revealed that more than 800 patients have so far received treatment from the Gampola Base Hospital.

Health authorities fear hepatitis could spread to other areas in the province with 56 such cases being reported from Kotmale while there were also patients from Nawalapitiya, Kurunduwatte, Pussellawa, Ulapane and Yatinuwara areas.

Kandy Municipal Council Water Supply Chief Engineer Palitha Abeykoon said the water distributed by the council was clean but people were at risk of being sick because their water tanks and pipes were often not clean. He said a public campaign has been launched to educate people in the Kandy Municipal Council area on precautionary measures they should follow.

He said people should not drink water from the Mahaweli Ganga without boiling it, because the water was contaminated with various things including human faeces.

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