With the rise in mercury, sale of unhygienic and substandard cold drinks, fruit juices and ice creams has also increased, posing a serious threat to the health of people, especially children.
The vendors sell substandard drinks in many parts of the district and in various commercial localities.The drinks on sale include different fruit juices and ice creams. Many vendors are selling juice of stale fruits at low price, especially at various bus stands and other places.Most of juice sellers are not observing any hygiene standards while serving the drinks to their customers. These drinks are sometimes sold in reused bottles without proper wash.
As a result, they transmit different bacteria and viruses to the customers.“Sale of spurious cold drinks or drinks prepared under poor hygienic conditions is one of the main causes of various seasonal diseases among children in summer. Flies, wasps, mosquitoes and other such pests at the stalls of vendors make their beverages harmful to health,” said Dr AK Mohanty of Balichandrapur.
Talking to this paper, some parents said though the sale of unhygienic food items continue all the year without any check by them authorities concerned, the situation has grown more serious in this summer.“Children are the worst victims of it as they get attracted easily to the colours and tastes of these drinks and ice creams and ultimately fall ill,” said Sujata Nanda, a mother whose eight- year- old son is undergoing treatment in a hospital at Chattia after drinking a few glasses of spurious cold drinks.
Almost all the juice and cold drink sellers use ice to make the drinks. Many ice factory owners use polluted river water to make ice for which any drinks with the ice is injurious to health, said Dr B Parida, a retired physician of Bari.“Food adulteration has always been a major contributor to the health problems of people due to ineffective control of the authorities. Every summer, the situation aggravates as hot weather forces people to consume drinks, which they would avoid in normal days,” said Dr GP Das in Balichandrapur.
In the absence of any arrangement for provision of cold and clean drinking water at the public places by the administration, the wayfarers and others fall back on the substandard and spurious drinks.Some ingredients used in these drinks are injurious to health. Most of the roadside vendors are using illegal and highly toxic food colours and saccharin instead of sugar in drinks. The red-colour frequently used in ice creams is not good for health, Dr Das opined.
The doctor also warned that substandard drinks and edibles may cause diseases like typhoid, hepatitis, diarrhoea, different kinds of infections and tonsillitis.The ratio of the diseases increases by 50 per cent in summer because of unhygienic food and drinks, he said and demanded that the Government immediately impose a ban on the sale of unhygienic food especially outside schools.He further stated if such a ban was not possible, the Government should direct roadside vendors to adopt strict safety measures like using disposable utensils, paper glasses and proper covering of edibles. The measures should be implemented strictly and action be taken when there are lapses, he stressed.