Hepatitis-A infection- Ensure safe water

The government’s initiative—Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), is all set to be completed by June this year, but what needs to be ensured is the safe drinking water to the consumers across Jammu and Kashmir as several reports have coming to the fore, revealing that five persons have been tested positive for Hepatitis-A infection in Shopian village after consuming “unsafe drinking water” supplied to the village. The completion of the mission cannot be possibly done at a time when the people are making claims about the ‘unsafe drinking water’, which according to them have led to the Hepatitis-A infection, which is a highly contagious liver infection caused by the Hepatitis A virus. The virus is one of several types of Hepatitis viruses that cause liver inflammation and affect the liver’s ability to function. Symptoms of Hepatitis A range from mild to severe and can include fever, malaise, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, nausea, abdominal discomfort, dark-coloured urine, and jaundice. Ensuring water supply to every household across Jammu and Kashmir is much needed and appreciable step taken by the incumbent administration led by the Lieutenant Governor here to end the sufferings of people, who have been deprived of the basic facility by the successive regimes, but the administration needs to be cautious and make sure that the safe drinking water is supplied to the people. The sampling being done after the positive cases of Hepatitis-A infection must be checked thoroughly to ensure that there is no increase in the number of such infections.