Oral saline that had been sold at Tk three is now being priced at Tk four to five. Retailers allege that they have to buy them at an increased rate from the wholesalers. There is also a shortage of water purifying tablets in the city's markets. Halogen tablets are being sold at three times higher than its previous price.

"I used to buy these saline packets for Tk three earlier but now the salesman is charging Tk five for each packet," said Abul Hossain of Mugdapara. Because of this situation, people in remote flood effected areas stand to suffer more.

According to the Disaster Monitoring Cell of the Directorate of Health, 52,809 people were taken ill with diarrhoea in 243 upazilas of 38 districts around the country until yesterday and 33 of them had died. At least 715 people were down with waterborne diseases in Dhaka with one death reported.

Oral saline is the only remedy for diarrhoea as it prevents dehydration or fluid loss from the human body. Relief workers said that the present supply of oral saline is insufficient for such a large number of patients.

Meanwhile most of the oral saline producers have increased their production to meet the growing need as the floodwater has begun to recede.

The authorities of Oral Saline Production and Distribution Cell of Institute of Public Health said they have doubled their production to meet the present demand. They said that usually around 1, 30,000 packets of oral saline are produced in their five unit offices in Dhaka, Jessore, Barisal, Comilla and Rangpur.

"But we have doubled our working shifts from July 29 and produced 2,58,850 packets every day," said Dr. Md. Rashiduzzaman, deputy director of the cell. He said at least one crore extra packets of oral saline is necessary to meet the demands during floods. Dr. Rashiduzzaman also added that the Essential Drug Company Ltd. is producing five lakh packets of oral saline. Bangladesh Rifles also started producing oral saline from Thursday.

"Supply of oral saline to different areas depend on distribution and not on production," the deputy director said. He said the cell distributes packets of oral saline to civil surgeons of different districts and the surgeons then distribute them in their own areas.

"I do not think there should be a scarcity of oral saline in any area if civil surgeons can distribute it properly," he said adding that 1,21,800 packets of saline was supplied for Dhaka from July 1 to July 28.

However, he expressed his frustration that some civil surgeons do not collect the one-lakh saline packets they are supposed to in normal situations for storage purpose in the event of natural disasters. "They do not collect it even when the cell authorities ask them to and create a huge demand when serious calamities like a flood happens. How can we manage it if everyone wants such a large number of saline packets at the same time?"

The deputy director also added that supply of fresh water in inundated areas is a must to fight the disease. "Some of the medical teams that came to collect saline said that in some areas flood effected people do not even have fresh water to prepare oral saline."

ICDDR, B Employee's Multipurpose Co-operative Society Ltd. that produces oral saline, especially the rice powder saline, has increased its production too.

"Usually we produce 50,000 packets per month but now we are making 20,000 packets per day," said Mohammed Yunus, Manager of the society. However, he added that the society is unable to produce to its full capability due to a lack of manpower and storage facilities.

At present around 30 persons including the hospital's staff and contractual employees work everyday. More manpower is needed as they produce the saline manually. The society also doesn't have a proper machine for double sealing the packets.

"We cannot produce more packets in advance as our rice saline remains edible for only two months after production in normal temperature. It lasts six months if refrigerated. But we do not have enough storage facilities," said Yunus. He said that none of the private drug companies want to produce oral saline for these reasons.

"They would not be able to make any profit because of the limited storage facilities," he explained.

When asked the deputy director of Oral Saline Production and Distribution Cell also conceded that they are unable to produce and store more packets beforehand to meet any disaster as they do not have enough funds for it.