By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi government Monday asserted that the city’s drinking water is safe and debunked the study in the British journal Lancet that claimed presence of a superbug in New Delhi water. The government also rejected the author’s claims that truth was being suppressed.
“Please don’t spread panic when there is no panic. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been saying, and I think Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has said that this is not so and water is safe for drinking,” Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit told reporters here.
The study, published in Lancet last week, said the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) gene, which makes bacteria resistant to an array of antibiotics, including the most powerful ones, has been found in open water pools, water from overflowing sewage and even a couple of drinking water samples in the Indian capital.
Ramesh Negi, the CEO of Delhi Jal Board that supplies water to much of the city, said: “We are testing the water as per the Bureau of India Standard (BIS) standards. Delhi’s water is safe for drinking, and quoting the same (Lancet) study, it says chances of this bacteria growing in this water is very less.”
The study, published last week in the prestigious medical journal, was promptly rejected by the government and medical experts in India. The article’s co-author Mark Toleman accused the government of “suppressing the truth”.
“We have rejected it and we still reject it,” India’s Director General Health Service R.K. Srivastava told IANS.
However, he added that a final statement can be made only after the research wing of the health ministry, Department of Health Research and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) completes its study.
“The research wing will examine everything, the protocol and the method of research, all will be examined and only after that a final statement can be given by the concerned authorities,” Srivastava said.
Toleman alleged that the Indian government was “threatening” and “abusing” its own scientists, and Indian experts have pitched against the comments.
Renowned cardiologist and member of the board of directors of Medical Council of India Devi Shetty said: “If there is any country which doesn’t interfere with the scientific community it is the Indian government.”
“I have worked closely with the health ministry and it is a very open kind of environment which does not involve itself with any scientific community. I am surprised that they have accused our government of intimidating our scientists,” he said.
Shetty said the methodology of the study should be probed.
“I would like to know how many sewage water samples from the US and Europe were tested for presence of multi-drug resistant bacteria. Today, in this country incidence of drug resistance is much much less, especially for high-end antibiotics compared to western countries,” he said.
Ajay Kumar Singh, former vice president of the Indian Medical Association, said: “They are saying the India government is suppressing and threatening its own scientists from speaking on a very serious matter. This needs to be investigated by an independent agency.”
“The Lancet study saying this bacteria was responsible for different disease all over the world is absolutely wrong.”
The Indian health ministry and experts have been questioning the credibility of study, the samples collection for which was video-graphed by a British news channel and sent to Britain for examination.