People urged to drink boiled water during monsoon season

KARACHI: Health experts have warned the public to drink water after boiling it for at least 10 minutes during the monsoon season to avoid waterborne diseases, including diarrhoea, gastroenteritis and hepatitis.

The warning was issued after an advisory was released for Pakistan by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the leading national public health institute of the United States headquartered in the city of Atlanta.

In its warning issued on Saturday, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) warned the public to protect themselves during the monsoon season from diseases that spread due to contaminated water.

People should use boiled or mineral water to avoid waterborne diseases, read the statement, in which PMA experts said waterborne diseases spread by drinking contaminated water.

They said three million people in Pakistan suffer from waterborne disease such as typhoid, hepatitis A and E and cholera, adding that approximately 250,000 children below the age of five years die every year because of waterborne diseases.

The CDC had issued a health warning for Pakistan to alert the people of an ongoing outbreak of “extensively drug-resistant” typhoid fever that does not respond to most antibiotics. The institute has urged the public to take extra care with food and water and get vaccinated for typhoid.

The PMA advises the people for proper hand-washing and safe food and water practices, saying that they should avoid eating from bazaars and drinking water and beverages with ice of unknown purity.

“We stress upon the government to include typhoid in its immunisation programme and provide free-of-charge vaccination to the people at all the public health facilities.”