The situation continued to worsen in remote areas of the district as people are taking unwholesome food due to monga (pre-harvest lean period). Scarcity of safe drinking water is also spreading the disease, district health officials said yesterday.

The dead are Nasiran, 60, Keshori Begum, 50 and Anisa Begum, 26, of Shaghata; and Nasima, 60, Mahbub Mia, 12, Fulmati Bergum, 65, and eight month-old Kaiser Mia of Sundeganj upazila. Diarrhoea patients are rushing to the Gaibandha Sadar Hospital and different upazila health complexes. At least 400 people have so far been admitted to the hospitals, the officials said.

At least 50 people were attacked with the disease in Badiakhali area in the Sadar upazila in last 24 hours, they said.

Shortage of IV saline and other drugs is acute at Shaghata upazila health complex, where 33 patients were admitted during the period. Another 16 people were provided treatment at the outdoor, sources there said. But no health assistant visited the rural areas yet, local people claimed.

Many of the patients at Shaghata health complex said they are to procure saline and drugs from local markets at exorbitant prices.

In remote shoal areas, many patients are compelled to take treatment from quacks as they can not come to hospitals due to communication problem.

A local NGO-- Nijera Kori --is supplying oral saline and removing critical patients to health complexes.

Sources at Civil Surgeon's office said 106 medical teams have been formed. But lack of transport and medicines including IV saline is affecting their work in remote areas, they said.