India: Tata Steel's Odisha plant condition blamed for dengue cases; includes company comments
Stagnant water pools and unsanitary conditions in a plant being constructed by Tata Steel Ltd in Odisha led to a dengue fever outbreak which infected more than 280 workers, killing one of them, a government official said on Friday. Tata Steel, a unit of India's Tata conglomerate, is building a six-million-tonne-capacity plant in Jajpur district that is due to be completed by 2015. Jajpur district's chief health official said the environment within the 1,700-acre building site was unclean, creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes which spread the virus. "One death and 284 cases are linked to the Tata plant," Debendra Kumar Jena told the Thomson Reuters Foundation...Tata Steel said in a statement it had dispatched 19 teams to clean up the site and raise awareness among employees about how to protect themselves from dengue, malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. "Dengue is a problem at this time of the year. There are 40,000 people working on the Kalinga Nagar site. I am sorry to hear some people have contracted dengue. We are doing all that required from our side," TV Narendran, managing director of Tata Steel India, told local television.