CAIRO: Independent MP Gamal Zahran demanded Qaliubiya Governor Adly Hussein submit his resignation following reports of an increase in the number of typhoid cases in the governorate. The governor, however, placed the blame on the contractor responsible for constructing the water networks in one of the villages, leading to the contamination of drinking water with sewage water. The People's Assembly's health committee called for two urgent meetings this week - interrupting its annual vacation - to discuss the H1N1 virus and typhoid. On Tuesday, the committee discussed the status of H1N1 in Egypt, and on Wednesday it reviewed the situation in Qaliubiya, where typhoid broke out in two villages there. The meeting was headed by the committee's chairman and the Doctors' Syndicate's chairman Hamdy El-Sayyed, and brought together officials from the Ministries of Health, Local Development and Housing, Utilities and Urban Development, as well as independent, National Democratic Party and Muslim Brotherhood MPs. Zahran proposed forming a subcommittee to investigate "who is responsible for the [typhoid] break out. Brotherhood MPs Farid Ismail, Hamdy Hassan, Abdel Fattah Hassan, Abdullah Eliwah, Akram Al-Shaer and Gamal Shehata, who all attended the meeting, stated in an official statement sent to Daily News Egypt that the situation is Qaliubiya is only an example of the "deteriorating conditions in the Egyptian villages and is an indicator of a high probability of the eruption of other epidemic diseases resulting from drinking contaminated water. The members also blamed the government's neglect and called for increasing the budget allocated for the maintenance of water pipes network nationwide. They also called for those responsible for the eruption of typhoid to be penalized. On a related note, NDP member in the Shoura Council Mouad Khattab filed a proposal to council president Safwat Al-Sherif, asking the government to crack down on agricultural projects that "are irrigated with sewage water. Khattab further urged the government to crack down on factories that don't abide by sanitary waste disposal measures. On Monday Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, issued a decree eradicating all agricultural projects that were proven to use sewage water for irrigation. Reportedly, such projects were mainly located in Al-Saf village off Giza and Tenth of Ramadan industrial city.
