Eluru Illness: AP CM Asks Officials To Keep A Check On Dumping Yards

Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy held a video conference on the cause for illness in Eluru with experts. AIIMS, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) and other reputed institutions have confirmed that the residues of pesticides could be the reason for the outbreak of the mysterious disease in Eluru. 

The Chief Minister said all types of tests should be conducted so that incidents like Eluru would not repeat. The  Chief Minister told to focus on maintenance of dumping yards and instructed the officials to conducts all possible tests across West Godavari district. The Chief Minister instructed to test drinking water samples from all sources in all the districts. The samples should be collected systematically and should be analysed with experts, he said. All these tests should be analysed and the necessary measures should be taken accordingly. The Chief Minister said AIIMS and IICT should conduct a deep study on long term on the causes of the outbreak in Eluru and asked the Chief Secretary to prepare an action plan for the same.

The Chief Minister said organic farming should be encouraged and awareness should be created on the same among the farmers through RBKs. Agriculture Department should focus on withdrawing harmful pesticides from the market, he said. Public health labs should be strengthened in every district. Samples should be collected regularly, tested and necessary measures should be taken accordingly, he said and added that a plan should be made to setup three state-level labs.

AIIMS, New Delhi reported that lead was detected in the blood of the patients and  nickel was found in all the milk samples. They said Organochlorine was the reason for illness in the patients and pesticides could be the reason for the presence of Organochlorine  and would have entered the human body in the process of the food cycle. They said lead was found in blood samples of relatives of patients and long term study is needed on it. The exact reason for the illness would be known after analysing a sample of food, drinking water and vegetables for a few months.

IICT experts said that 21 samples of water were collected along with blood samples of people and animals. No traces of heavy metals like lead, nickel and arsenic were found in water samples and also pesticides residues were also not found in water samples. Endosulfan and DDD were traced in blood samples. The lead was found in some blood samples and no traces of organophosphates were found, they said.

National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) Hyderabad has conducted tests on air pollution in Eluru and said the pollution of air was in permissible limits. They have tested underground water and surface water and found all metals are in permissible limits except mercury. No traces of organochlorine, organophosphates or lead were found in water. They said the samples of soil are being tested.  They said the concentration of mercury is high in underground water compared to surface waters and it could be due to the solid waste burning.

Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology,(CCMB), Hyderabad said no bacteria or virus was found in the samples. National Institute of Virology, Pune reported that no evidence was found to prove viral infection. National Institution of Nutrition, Hyderabad reported that residues of pesticides were found in the samples of tomato and brinjal and these pesticides could be the reason for the illness. The representative of the World Health Organization( WHO ), Dr Ashish said the focus should be laid on finding how the residues of pesticides entered the human body and the committee constituted by the government should work on it.

Representatives of NIN, IICT, AIIMS, New Delhi, AIIMS, Mangalgiri, NCDC, NIV participated in the video conference. Deputy Chief Minister Alla Krishna Srinivas, West Godavari district Collector Mutyalaraju participated from Eluru. Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney, Special Chief Secretary Poonam  Malakondaiah, Health Principal Secretary Anil Kumar Singhal, Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar and other officials were present at the meeting.