Cholera outbreak: Odisha flush with systemic rot

The morning air hung heavy with grief and an unknown fear. On the fringes of Suanri village, about 25 km from Cuttack, 17-year-old Lopamudra Bal struggled to keep the earthen stove burning as she stirred rice for her mother’s ninth-day ritual, an essential part of Hindu rituals. She now has an additional responsibility of watching over her polio-afflicted brother, Rohit.

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The siblings lost their 38-year-old mother Urmila Bal to severe diarrhoea. She is one of the victims in the recent outbreak that gripped at least nine districts in coastal, central and western Odisha. “I was in my maternal uncle’s place when Maa fell sick on June 14. I rushed home but by that time she had been shifted to SCB medical college and hospital in Cuttack after preliminary treatment at Tangi hospital. Doctors could not save her. She succumbed the next morning,” Lopamudra said with a choked voice. Urmila’s death has left the family broken. Her husband Santosh Bal, a contract labourer in a cement factory nearly 8 km away, first caught the infection. He suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting when he was at work on June 13. As his condition worsened, his nephew, also a worker in the same firm, brought him home. After treatment, he recovered but Urmila fell sick. Soon 12 others in the village were affected, one after another.