By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI- At a time when lethal Naegleria fowleri, also known as ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, has already claimed at least seven lives, traces of chlorine have not been found in the water supplied to four major government hospitals of the metropolis.
This stunning disclosure was made by Sindh health department’s focal group that has been tasked to collect water samples and analyze them to check whether they contained chlorine or not because it is only through chlorinated water the precious human lives could be saved from the deadly disease.
According to doctors, only chlorinated water could kill amoeba (a very small living creature that consists of only one cell) which nurtures in warm water and claims lives of human-being after entering into brain through their nasal cavity.
A spokesman for the focal group said that group’s teams, equipped with on-the-spot collection and testing of water samples, visited Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and Civil Hospital, Karachi, to check whether water being supplied to them was chlorinated or not.
But, unfortunately, the water samples collected from these four major public sector’s health facilities were found without chlorine, he deplored.
He said focal group had collected 343 samples from different parts of the city and their tests showed that at least 52 per cent (177) of them were not satisfactorily chlorinated or not chlorinated at all. The remaining 166 samples were found containing chlorine equal to or more than 0.25 parts per million — the minimum desired level of chlorination.
