‘Chlorinated water can reduce rate of diarrhoea in children’

Doctors also advise using treated water to prevent water contamination to bringing down diarrhoea cases.

As part of the study, water points were randomly assigned to chlorinate drinking water automatically at the point of collection or to be treated by a visually identical doser that supplied vitamin C (active control group). All children below 5 years in both groups were measured every 2–3 months during a 14-month follow-up period.

The study found that the children in the treatment group had lesser number of diarrhoea cases than the children who did not use chlorinated water. Passive chlorination at the point of collection could be an effective and scalable strategy in low-income urban settings to reduce child diarrhoea, it concluded.

Tamil Nadu has been witnessing outbreaks of acute diarrhoeal diseases in various districts, including Chennai, Ariyalur, Pudukkottai, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Madurai and Tiruvannamalai, with more than 200 cases reported in children only due to water contamination. While most households in urban and suburban areas receive piped water, chlorination at the water points can reduce contamination, which in turn would reduce diarrhoea rate in children, the study said.

Most of the cases of diarrhoea reported in the State are related to food and water contamination.

“Though there are various reasons of diarrhoea in children, chlorination at the primary distribution point can reduce the prevalence of diarrhoea to some extent. But diarrhoea can also be caused by adulterated food, groundwater and even due to side effects of medications. Thus extra precautions such as boiling water should be followed,” said Dr Mohan Kumar, paediatrician, Institute ofChild Health.