Ospedale Mohakhali di Dhaka, in Bangladesh

(EPA/ABIR ABDULLAH)

A picture made availabe on 19 March 2010 shows Bangladeshi diarrhoea affected patients waiting for treatment in the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) hospital at Mohakhali in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 18 March 2010. The hospital has admitted more than 400 patients every day for the last one week caused by people eating drinking polluted water, forcing people to use contaminated sources and foods taken from the open sources. Water has been a mojor problem for the city dwellers as they suffer intake of polluted and stinky water while the government has been directed to get water tested by the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) and Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) and to submit a status report before the High Court in two weeks. The Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) is supplying 1.50 billion litres of water a day against a demand of 2.25 billion litres due to frequent power cuts and a fall in groundwater level.