Govt says no outbreak of any disease in Uttarakhand; 20 bravehearts to get Guard of Honour

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday said no outbreak of any water, food or air-borne disease has been reported from the flood-affected areas of Uttarakhand.

A three-member high-level committee from the ministry of health and family welfare is in Dehradun to review the public health situations with state health authorities. The team had left on Wednesday.


"No outbreak of water borne/food borne/air borne or direct contact diseases has been reported from affected areas," said a health ministry statement.

It added that after picking up early warning signals, diarrhoea cases in Haridwar (Alwalpur), Uttarkashi (Udvi) and Rudraprayag (Chandrapuri) has been managed at incipient stage.

The ministry said district units of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), NRHM is conducting health surveillance in all affected districts.

It said three central public health teams have already been posted in Uttarakhand and they have reported to principal secretary, health in Uttarakhand since June 23. Eight additional teams are also kept on standby, ready to move at short notice, the ministry said.

A specialist from National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme has been placed with the state government for providing assistance on matters pertaining to vector borne diseases, it said.

"The first three-member team from NIMHANS for providing psycho-social support is reaching Dehradun on Thursday in the afternoon. Two more teams (three-member each) are also on the way," the statement said.

According to the ministry, the state government has requested for specified quantity of 60 drug and non-drug items and three truckloads of these medical supplies have been delivered.

On the state's request, 10,00,000 chlorine tablets are being procured by the ministry.

20 bravehearts to get Guard of Honour

Twenty bravehearts, who died in Tuesday's chopper crash while rescuing stranded people in flood-ravaged areas of Uttarakhand, will be given a 'guard of honour', a ceremonial mark of respect, by the government on Friday in Dehradun.

"20 people belonging to National Disaster Response Force (nine), Indo Tibetan Border Police (six) and five from Indian Air Force will be a given guard of honour on Friday at 12.30pm in Dehradun," Vice chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) M Shashidhar Reddy told reporters here. Reddy said he would be accompanying home minister Sushilkumar Shinde to Dehradun to pay homage to these brave personnel who laid down their lives in the service of the nation.

A sophisticated Mi-17V5 helicopter, belonging to IAF, had crashed in bad weather during a rescue mission in the flood-ravaged hill state. Bodies of all 20 personnel, on board the ill-fated chopper, have been recovered. He said so far over one lakh people have been evacuated from different areas of the state. "As many as 1,495 people have been evacuated till 2pm on Thursday both by air and by road. A total of 1,04,095 people have been evacuated so far since the disaster struck," Reddy said. He said that 560 people have died in the disaster, 476 have been injured and about 344 people are still missing. A total of 2,232 houses, 154 bridges and 320 roads have been damaged due to the disaster.

Reddy's figures are lower to official estimates of 822 people having lost their lives following the natural disaster in the hill state. Reddy hoped that the rescue operation would be completed by Friday.