E coli breaches hsg complex boundary, child living in vicinity lands in hospital
Times of India | 20 February 2025
Kolkata: A 10-year-old boy who lives near a prominent housing complex off EM Bypass has been admitted to the hospital with a severe E coli infection. Admitted on Tuesday with severe dehydration and complaints of loose stool, the boy is under treatment at Peerless Hospital. Doctors said there are various strains of E coli, including some aggressive ones.
E coli is a group of bacteria. While most types of the bacteria are harmless or can cause relatively brief episodes of diarrhoea, a few strains can cause intense symptoms like bloody diarrhoea and vomiting. Health experts said that humans can get the infection from contaminated water or food. Children and older adults are at higher risk of developing complications.
TOI on Tuesday reported the E coli contamination of groundwater in the Upohar housing complex. Reacting to a TOI report, the KMC health department sent a team of officials to collect water samples from there. Sources said the boy lives within a 3km vicinity of Upohar. Doctors said that E coli infections are usually prevalent during summer and rainy months.
"The boy was very sick with complaints of watery stool, sunken eyes, no urine, and severe dehydration. On being told that he lives near Upohar, we sent his stool samples for testing as there have been complaints of E coli from that area. Test reports confirmed our suspicion. This boy is now recovering well," said paediatrician Saheli Dasgupta, head of the paediatric critical care unit at Peerless.
Sources in the hospital said E coli infection has also been found in a two-year-old child from a Jadavpur locality. This child, however, is being treated on an OPD basis.
A separate team from KMC also visited South City and collected water samples from the high-rise. According to a KMC official, the decision to collect water samples from South City was taken to check the quality of groundwater in the neighbourhood.
"Since there has been an outbreak of enteric disease at Upohar, we decided to send a team to collect samples from the HIG and MIG segments of the housing complex. We also decided to send another team to South City," said a KMC health department official, adding that the samples would be tested at the KMC-run laboratory and results would be known in a week.
According to a KMC water supply department official, the department will intervene and suggest remedial measures to the residents of Upohar once the results are known. "It appears that the management that runs the water supply system at the complex should have added adequate chlorine to avoid such bacterial contamination," said a KMC water supply department official.