The residents of suburbs and villages on the outskirts of the city are angry over what they say is the civic body’s failure to supply safe water.
On January 7, NV Kulkarni, a doctor in the western suburb of Pune’s Dhayari, treated at least 40 patients suffering from gastrointestinal problems in the township where he lives. The next day, there were just as many patients with similar symptoms at his clinic. Kulkarni posted a message on the WhatsApp group of DSK Vishwa, a township of nine housing societies, warning residents of a stomach bug in the area. “At that time GBS was not suspected,” he said.Around 10 days later, some patients began showing symptoms of paralysis and some were taken to the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, where they were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. A rare autoimmune disorder, GBS causes temporary or lifelong paralysis and numbness in limbs. It is triggered days or weeks after a viral or bacterial infection.
One of those who fell ill in the township was Pravin Vibhute, a 40-year-old chartered accountant. After taking some medicines, he travelled to Solapur for a function where he developed Guillain-Barré syndrome and breathing difficulties. On January 26, he died in hospital. This was the first of the five deaths in Maharashtra from Guillain-Barré syndrome since early January.State health officials have traced the sudden spike in Guillain-Barré syndrome cases in and around Pune to a mix of bacterial and viral infections. The bacteria, campylobacter jejuni, spreads through contaminated water.
While health officials told Scroll that water was not the sole source of infections that developed into Guillain-Barré syndrome, residents are angry over what they see as the failure of the municipal corporation to supply safe water to the area. The Pune Municipal Corporation is allowed around 11.5 TMC, or thousand million cubic feet, of water from Khadakwasala dam annually. But it needs more than this and has been demanding a greater water allocation from the irrigation department. Residents from villages such as Kirkatwadi, Nanded gaon, Khadakwasala, which reported a high number of GBS cases, also complained that they had been receiving water without adequate chlorination and filtration.
