FARHANIYA/RIYADH, 14 July 2003 — The number of people affected by a mysterious disease in Farhaniya in the northern region has risen to 93, Arab News has learned.
The Ministry of Health has sent a team of medical inspectors to the village to investigate the matter. Preliminary laboratory tests reveal that the samples of water taken from the village tanks contained a germ, which probably explains how so many in the village have been infected.
Dr. Qasim Al-Qasbi, deputy minister of health for executive affairs, told Arab News that the specialized team from the ministry and another team from Dilaihan medical center have identified the germ as the E.coli bacterium.
Al-Qasbi added that samples taken from infected people have been urgently sent to the central laboratory in Riyadh to be studied, and that the results will be announced soon. He said that five infected people who were transferred to Muwaqaq Hospital have been discharged after receiving treatment. Other cases of infected people did not require a hospital transfer because their condition is stable, the official added.
The medical team managed successfully to identify all the houses in the village whose inhabitants had been infected by the disease from the water.
Meanwhile, Dr. Dahi Al-Sukaibi, deputy director general for health affairs in Hail, told Arab News that preliminary tests showed that the drinking water in the village had been polluted by a microscopic germ that has yet to be identified.
He said that the health department in Hail sent out circulars to residents warning them not to drink water whose source was not known.
Al-Sukaibi, also said that the company responsible for providing water to the village was asked to pump all the water out of the water tanks in the village and decontaminate the tanks according to proper hygienic procedures and under the supervision of environmental health inspectors.
The health affairs department in Hail sent an urgent letter to the Ministry of Water and Electricity’s branch in the city to provide residents of the village with clean drinking water.
The medical team in charge of the investigation said symptoms include a rise in temperature to nearly 40 degrees, headache and fatigue. The health directorate requested that residents submit to a full medical check-up.
Arab News accompanied Al-Sukaibi’s tour of Farhaniya village, where officials met with the infected people and visited the wells in which water has apparently been polluted. Al-Sukaibi said that the disease was discovered in the village 10 days before the visit.
