Programme to prevent renal diseases

Nimal Wijesinghe - Anuradhapura Additional District Group Corr

North Central Province Health Minister Peshala Jayaratne has pioneered in making arrangements to prevent the speedy spreading of renal diseases in the North Central Province.

He told the Daily News that special attention was being focused on the acute shortage of pure drinking water which was supposed to have been a major factor for the increase in kidney ailments and a novel programme for providing drinking water to the rural village through bowsers, had been activated.

Priority is given to the villages which are at risk of spreading the disease, was high and hamlets sans rural water supply schemes.

In the Thantirimale area alone, 42 percent of the rural community was suffering from kidney ailments and furthermore, half of the number of deep wells contained contaminated water which was not suitable for drinking and cooking.

At present on the ratio of one, 1,000 litre tank per three houses in Tantirimale zone, pure drinking water was distributed by a fleet of bowsers under the patronage of Water Supply and Drainage Board in the province.

The Minister emphasized that the programme being implemented as a pilot project, would be expanded to other disease spreading areas where no permanent rural water supply schemes were functioning.

The North Central Provincial Health Services Director Dr W Atapattu has submitted to the authorities that the shortage of pure drinking water in many villages had been the main cause for spreading a series of diseases including kidney diseases in the provinces.

He has emphasized that there were nearly 20,000 kidney patients reported in the North Central Province, resulting from the lack of pure drinking water for consumption.