At least nine people have died and more than 200 others have been hospitalized in Indore, central India, following a diarrhea outbreak officials attribute to contaminated drinking water, according to local health authorities and a lawmaker.
Lawmaker Kailash Vijayvargiya confirmed the deaths, while Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters that a leak in the Bhagirathpur area had tainted the city’s water supply. Tests of the pipeline confirmed the presence of harmful bacteria.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll, but yes, more than 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals in the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water, and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
