CANCER ALARMINGLY

SPREADING IN
KUTTANAD

Reji Joseph

CANCER ALARMINGLY SPREADING IN KUTTANAD

Cancer, the killer disease, is now
spreading fast into Kuttanad region, the
primary water-logged rice bowl of central
Kerala. This densely populated region,
comprising parts of Kottayam and
Alappuzha Districts, is today home to over
1.8 million people. Kuttanad is most suitable
for rice cultivation, the major crop of the land
as well as coconuts,, trees of which stand
on the mainland walkway sides and all
around the lakeshores. Here, roughly 15,000
tonnes of chemical fertilizers, 500 tonnes of
insecticides and 50 tonnes of fungicides are
consumed annually.
Doctors confirm that 499 patients,
mostly from the Kuttanad belt, underwent
treatment at the radiotherapy department of
the Alappuzha Medical College Hospital
between January and May 2013, as against
355 during the same period the previous
year and 300 the year before that.
Preliminary investigations by the radiology
department of the hospital and voluntary
organizations point to cancers of the

intestines, lips, blood, urinary bladder and

skin. A cancer survey in the Kainakary
Panchayat of water-logged Kuttanad,
conducted in the wake of media reports on
an increased prevalence of the disease in
the region, has indicated continuing nonavailability of pure drinking water and lack
of measures to control lifestyle diseases,
apart from confirming an above average
prevalence of cancer. The survey, covering
8,091 people from 1,809 houses in the
seven wards of Kainakary Panchayat, found
that 91 deaths, making up for 27 per cent of
the total 334 deaths in the seven wards last
year, resulted from cancer. Dividing the
cases into probable and confirmed cases,
the survey found that the prevalence of selfreported cancer cases in the seven
panchayat wards was 4.5 cases per 1,000
persons for confirmed cases. The overall
prevalence, including both probable and
confirmed, stood at 6.3 per 1,000 persons.
A three-year Indo-Dutch Study has
established that the use of fertilizers and

pesticides were 50-75 percent more in

Kuttanad than in other regions.

lakes for their drinking water.

The study also points out that over 50

per cent of chemicals used in Kuttanad were
highly toxic and that the doses of chemicals
used to protect crops here was much higher
than that recommended by the Kerala
Agricultural University. In addition, organic
tissue sample of fish and shrimp showed
levels of pesticide to be 10 times higher than
the admissible toxic levels.

During summer months when there

was no flow into Kuttanad from the rivers
emptying into the basin the region enjoyed
the cleansing impact of the ebb and flow of
the seas tidal action. The salinity in the water
also helped check the proliferation of water
weeds. Today the stagnant cesspools of the
region, which are infested with thick weed
growth, provide the ideal breeding ground
for mosquitoes.

The Kerala Pollution Control Board

(KPCB), which was associated in a detailed
study of the regions various problems under
a three-year Indo-Dutch programme, the
Kuttanad water balance study project,
reports that some 25,000 tons of fertiliser
and 500 tons of highly toxic pesticides are
used in the 55,000 hectares of Kuttanad
paddy fields annually. A considerable portion
of this enters the water bodies when the
water drains from the fields. According to
the study referred to above, the use of
fertilizers and pesticides was 50 to 75 per
cent more in Kuttanad than in other regions.

The recent outbreak is reminiscent of

various previous ones, highlighting the
immediate need for ameliorative measures.
In 1991, a devastating fish disease ulcerative syndrome - had wiped out a large
number of fish in Kuttanad. A series of
researches conducted in its wake have
pointed out that pesticide pollution was the
predisposing factor for the disease.
Following that, ducks too died in large
numbers because of some mysterious
disease. Most of the diseases were in one
way or another related to the environment
and its degradation.

Studies by the KPCB have revealed

the presence of DDT and its derivatives,
DDE and DDD in water and soil sediments.
Some of these chemicals are well-known
carcinogens. More than 40 per cent of the
population of the area or nearly five lakh
people depend on polluted canals, rivers and

In the Alappuzha Municipal area too,

a survey early last year identified 1,500
possible cancer cases. A cancer survey in
the Kainakary Panchayat of the waterlogged Kuttanad, conducted in the wake of
media reports on an increased prevalence
of the disease in the region, has indicated

continued non-availability of pure drinking

water and lack of measures to control
lifestyle diseases, apart from confirming an
above average prevalence of cancer.
A report on the survey, conducted by
the Department of Community Medicine of
the Alappuzha Medical College, the
Regional Prevention of Epidemic and
Infectious Diseases Cell and the State
Disease Control and Monitoring Cell,
covering 8,091 people from 1,809 houses
in the seven wards of Kainakary Panchayat,
found that 91 deaths, making up for 27 per
cent of the total 334 deaths in the seven
wards from July 2004 to July 2009, were
due to cancer. Dividing the cases into
probable and confirmed cases, the survey
found that prevalence of self-reported
cancer cases in the seven wards was 4.5
cases per 1,000 persons for confirmed
cases.
Kuttanad is a waterlogged stretch of
about 110,000 hectares and 50,000
hectares of the region are even 60-220
centimeters below sea level. For the better
part of the year, most of the land is
submerged in water. It has the distinction of
being one of the few areas in the world
where farming is carried out below sea level.
Solid waste from medical colleges at
Alappuzha and Kottayam, sewage from the
municipalities of Kottayam, Thiruvalla,

Changanassery and Alappuzha, the oil and

faecal wastes from about 1200 house boats
which ply between Alappuzha and
Kumarakam- all find a dumping place in the
Vembanad Lake.
According to surveys by the Centre for
Water Resources Development and
Management Kozhikode, more than 80 per
cent of the people in Kuttanad rely on the
contaminated canal water for their daily
water requirements. About 40 per cent of this
number also use the water without boiling it
first. Developmental interventions have, in
fact, only worked to hurt Kuttanadus fragile
ecosystem. Aquatic weeds have also grown
to epidemic proportions.
According to Kerala State Pollution
Control Board statistics, the coliform bacteria
count in 100 millilitres of water in the Pampa
river at Sabarimala is 200,000. When the
river water reaches Edathua in Kuttanadu,
the count will have risen to 48,700. It is no
wonder then, that outbreaks of epidemics
like Rat Fever and Diarrhoea have seen an
alarming increase. Statistics at the
Alappuzha Medical College show an
increase in Filariasis, Schistosomiasis,
Typhoid, Jaundice, Intestinal Cancer,
Gastroenteritis and Cholera. Over the past
10 years, diarrhoeal diseases resulting from
inadequate water and sanitation have killed
over 5000 in Kuttanad.

The Alleppey Medical College, records

for the past five years reveal that of the total
patients admitted with waterborne diseases,
more than 70 per cent were from
Champakulam, Nedumudy, Momkonbu,
Kainakary, Pallathruthy all in Kuttanad
region. The main reason for such serious
waterborne diseases is contamination of
water in the rivers, canals and Vembanad
Lake.
Contamination of water in Kuttanad
has acquired serious dimensions in recent
years. Unscientific constructions such as
roads, bridges etc across the rivers and
canals and arresting the water flow in the
name of development have resulted in the
creation of large pools of stagnant and
contaminated water that act as breeding
ground for bacteria and mosquitoes.
The Vembanad Kol Wetlands has
been identified as the Ramsar Site at the
international convention on wetlands
organized by the UNESCO in the Iranian city
of Ramsar in 1981. Vembanad lake along
with the adjacent wetland over the eastern
and southern sides forms Kuttanad, the rice

bowl of Kerala, and the largest wetland

system in the western coast of India.
During the Sabarimala Temple
pilgrimage season four million people cross
the Pamba river to reach the hill shrine and
the river turns into a cesspool of human
waste, raw sewage and garbage. The
pilgrims defecate on the river banks and in
the vicinity for miles together, faecal matter
gets washed into the river water. Resultantly,
Epidemics like Rat fever and Diarrhoea have
seen an alarming increase. Over the past
10 years, diarrhoeal diseases resulting from
inadequate water and sanitation have killed
over 5,000 in Kuttanad.

Reji Joseph
Dec 31, 2013