An eerie silence is prevailing in this village with the medical teams shifting every patient to Rampachodavaram area hospital, which is about 85 km from here. The village is almost empty as 72 people were hospitalised in the recent past.
The few tribals, who have stayed back, are clueless as to what was in store for them.
Fear took hold of them and people began to think twice before stepping out of their homes.
They were seen locking themselves up from inside. Barring field-level officials and a couple of youth, the villagers remained indoors. Unless there was a call from a known voice, they hardly opened their doors. With frequent deaths in the habitation, the tribals were not sure of their future.
They don’t want to wake up to another death or move out of their village. Nor did they change their habit of collecting water for drinking from nearby streams, which are said to be polluted by animal carcasses upstream.
Water filters supplied
The ITDA officials have washed their hands off by simply supplying water filters to the villages on Thursday. Women were flocking the streams to fetch pails of water, and the water filters are still lie unpacked. “Our stream water is pure. There may be other streams that are polluted. But, we need not worry,”asserts P. Kasumma.
Murimela Chandramma, a senior citizen, too says that streams were the only source of drinking water. The hand pumps are not useful as they get muddied water. “We just cannot drink that reddish water,” she adds.
No communication
The village with 377 Kondreddy tribals is located deep in the forests, not easily accessible for the administration. There is no communication facility like telephone to the tribal hamlet nor is there an approach road.
Despite this, officials are pouring into the village and the government machinery is focussing mainly on shifting patients to medical camps or Rampachodavaram area hospital. Evidently, there is no focus on sanitation in the village. Pigs continue to roam freely.
There are no efforts to cleanse the premises and sanitise the village properly with bleaching powder and other chemicals. Muck and animal faeces are a common sight.
Rampachodavaram hospital authorities say that 25 patients were discharged by Friday evening.
Few patients were referred to the Kakinada General Hospital as their condition was serious. The Kakinanda hospital referred back 12 patients.
The patients from Chaparai, Boddagandi, and Nagalova villages were suffering from diarrhoea, malaria, viral fevers, gastroenteritis, said medical officer Gowtham.
