Contaminated Water Makes 900 Pupils, Teachers Sick

[Flashermac]

MORE THAN 900 students and teachers at Bangkok Christian College (BCC) have come down with acute diarrhoea over the past month, due very likely to contamination in the school's underground water tanks.

 

The college administrators said that as of now, they have solved the contamination problem.

 

"We closed the school for four days to clean up and improve our drinking-water system," BCC deputy director Penjun Wattanamongkhon said at a press conference yesterday.

 

The school was closed from last Saturday to Tuesday.

 

According to Dr Sopon Iamsirithavorn, director of Disease Control Centre 1, samples showed that the drinking water in the school and ice were contaminated with Norovirus and Rotavirus, which are known to cause gastrointestinal tract problems.

 

"They are common causes of diarrhoea. Usually, they don't cause any other severe symptoms or death," Sopon said.

 

Penjun said further checks showed that the contamination had taken place in the underground water tanks.

 

"There are some cracks in the tanks due to Bangkok's land subsidence," she explained. "Now, we have relocated our tanks to the ground level".

 

Disease Control Department's deputy director-general Opas Karnkawinpong said as many as 846 students and 70 teachers had developed acute diarrhoea between May 14 and last Friday.

 

"These patients account for 15 per cent of the school's total population," he said, adding that after relevant authorities were alerted, detailed inspections were conducted to identify the source of the problem.

 

He said that though relevant parties were sure they had completely removed the cause of the contamination, they planned to closely monitor the students and teachers' health for another week or two.

 

 

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[Flashermac]

And this private school isn't cheap. We used to have several BMs teaching there.

[radioman]

My son contracted Rotavirus some years ago and was hospitalised for about a week. The doctor commented that had we tried to treat him at home as just having an upset tummy there was a real possibility of long term health issues and death is not completely unknown!

 

I said at the time that I though he'd got it from drinking dodgy water at school but no one would entertain that thought even though there were a few other kids sick at the same time