Suspected Waterborne Disease Outbreak Investigation in JNU in response to a Media Scanning Alert
- Author Ray Laskar A
- Co-Author Saini A, Kumar N, Kumar H, Singh DP
- DOI https://ww
- Country : India
- Subject : Community Medicine
Keywords : Water; Pollution; Quality; Indicators; JNU Hostels
Abstract
Waterborne disease may occur in institutions such as hostels, schools owing to lack of maintenance and regular cleaning of water coolers and may flare up into outbreaks if timely action is not taken by the concerned authorities. An outbreak investigation was conducted by a multidisciplinary team in response to Media Scanning Alert from IDSP ID-6819 titled “Dead Lizard in the Water Cooler- student falls sick at JNU demand clean facilities, Delhi”. The team interviewed the affected students and their representatives retrospectively. Inspected the hostels, mess and collected drinking water samples from the various sources like water coolers of all hostels. There were some cases of non-specific symptoms suggestive of mild gastroenteritis but cannot be labelled as an outbreak and the cases during the month of June-July may be attributed to several causes as a single point source of contamination could not be identified. All the water coolers were also found to be clean with tight lid and the surrounding areas were clean, residual chorine was low (as attached to RO purifiers) and coliform count was 0. However the hostel authorities were instructed to carry out regular maintenance of water coolers and improve the overall hygienic conditions of the mess and hostel.
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