Five months after three migrant labourers from Murshidabad district in West Bengal were diagnosed with cholera at Mavoor, another labourer from the same district has been admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, with symptoms of the illness.
Sources in the Health Department told The Hindu on Sunday that 20-year-old Mostakim Mollik had come to Kerala on February 15. He was part of a four-member group. He is believed to have had diarrhoea in the course of his train journey.
Health Department staff identified symptoms of cholera in him during an inspection by the district administration to grade the residential locations of migrant labourers based on the level of hygiene. The inspection was conducted as part of the ‘Garima’ project. He was staying in a building at Ayamkulam. Incidentally, one member of the group is a minor.
Mollik was referred to the medical college hospital by the medical college hospital unit at Cherooppa on Saturday night. The owner of the building has been told not to allow other residents to vacate their rooms.
Samples to be tested
Sources said that water samples collected from a well on the premises had been sent for laboratory tests, and that water resources in the vicinity would be chlorinated. Meanwhile, the health inspector at Cherooppa has served notice on the owner of a building on Kuttikkadavu Road after it was found that migrant labourers had been staying in as many as nine congested rooms there. The rooms have been closed thereafter. Sources said that the inspection of rented accommodations of migrant labourers would continue.
The district administration had announced the Garima project soon after cholera cases were reported among three labourers who were staying at Thengilakkadavu in Mavoor last year. On finding the presence of vibrio cholerae bacteria in a water source in the area, as many as six buildings housing migrant labourers were closed down.
However, it is alleged that the inspection of residential localities at Mavoor by Health Department squads is yet to be completed.
