Posts
One hamlet of my village is suffering from cholera. Three days back one villager died of cholera. Yesterday my mother informed me about that. She was very disturbed because the patient who died was the son in law of my house maid. He was living in my village with his mother in law. One week back he had gone to nearby village to do labor work; he had food and water in the field. When he returned from the work, his stomach was upset. His condition remained the same for next day and third day, when condition deteriorated, he took some medicines prescribed by a quack. Fourth day his condition deteriorated further, he was brought to government referral hospital. But it was too late. His life could not be saved. Still many people are suffering in that hamlet.
My village has seven hamlets, six hamlets are named after castes and one hamlet is named after the location. These hamlets are :- Kannaujiya tola, mishar tola, jha tola, yadav tola, chamar tola, jolha tola and basa toli. I have been observing from last ten years that every year my villagers from chamar toli and jolha toli , get infected with this disease. Sometimes this disease occurs in other hamlets too but it starts from either jolha toli or chamar toli. Reason is not very far to find. The people who reside in these hamlets are from schedule caste, most of them (almost 99%) are landless labour and their major livelihood is agricultural labour work. In rainy season, whole day they spend in others fields doing agricultural work. They eat in the field sitting on the earth and drink contaminated water which is used for irrigation. Many of them get infected either in the rainy season or just afterwards. Because of poor hygienic condition, it spreads very rapidly in that hamlet. Once one hamlet gets this disease others also follow. Every year two to three people die because of this disease, but no concrete measure has been taken so far by my villagers. Being a rural development practitioner, it hurts me.
This is not the story of my village alone. Every year , this disease affects 3-5 million people worldwide and in 2010, 1-1.3 lakhs people died because of it. According to World health organization “Cholera remains a global threat and is one of the key indicators of social development. While the disease no longer poses a threat to countries with minimum standard of hygiene, it remains a challenge to countries where access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation cannot be guaranteed. Almost every developing country faces cholera outbreak or the threat of cholera epidemic.”
This disease occurs due to poor hygiene, drinking of contaminated water and consumption of food contaminated by feces of infected person. This disease can be prevented if a society maintains hygienic environment. Awareness about the disease, its prevention and other information should be given to the villagers through community based organizations. Hope, situation will improve in coming years and there will be no casualty from this disease in my village and other places.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ramanuj Dubey
