A team of doctors led by Dr Rajendra Panda visited Redhakhol to ascertain the reason behind mass illness and death of 13 persons in quick interval.
Villagers suspect that the illness and deaths are due to a kidney problem for water they use from the village tube wells. The grave situation in ward (5) of the Redhakhol NAC area was brought to light by two activists of the Aam Admi Party recently.CDMO Dr Minakshi Mohanty sent a team of doctors who made detailed discussions with the villagers and the persons suffering from it. At present, 15 people of Kuhi and Podabalanda villages are suffering from the disease and the medical team met all the persons personally and collected information from them.
"We have also collected water sample from the village tube wells," informed Dr Alekh Mahapatra, a team member.
The team met Urmila Sahu (50), Amulya Pradhan (55), Raghunath Biswal (50) and Dillip Sethi (40) among others, informed Dr Mahapatra. "During interaction with them, we came to know that a few of them are suffering from kidney ailments since long and are under treatment of a Cuttack based doctor. The rest are suffering from other diseases, including malaria, which are quite common in the area," Dr Mahapatra said further.
"The water sample will be sent to Bhubaneswar for testing and once we get the report, appropriate treatment will be made," informed the CDMO, adding that she was yet to get a complete report on the diseases from the team.Meanwhile, Aam Admi Party activist Mamata Patra, who brought the matter to light, demanded free treatment of the villagers as all of them belong to the BPl families. She further demanded supply of pipe water to the village.