Speakers at a seminar yesterday stressed the need for forming a national planning and policy committee for emergency diarrhoea preparedness with the support of the government and the NGOs. With the outbreak of diarrhoea worsening in the last few weeks, the speakers called for establishing satellite treatment centers with ICDDR,B-trained staff. They also suggested appropriate functional plans in collaboration with the government, increased behavioral change communication and awareness programme for the general population. The seminar titled 'Emergency preparedness plan for the management of diarrhoeal diseases outbreak' was jointly organised by Bangladesh government and ICDDR,B at Sasakawa auditorium at ICDDR,B in the city. The seminar was organised to share the experience of ICDDR,B in tackling diarrhoea outbreak last year so that the public hospitals can also follow the example. While addressing the seminar, Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof MA Faiz said the service system for the patients with diarrhoeal diseases in the public hospitals would be strengthened soon. All the hospitals should treat the diarrhoeal patients to minimise the pressure on ICDDR,B as very simple technology is needed to treat the patients with diarrhoeal diseases, he added. "Yet we are far from utilising the simple technology,' he said adding that water and sanitation system should be improved and at the same time creating mass awareness to this end is a must. "We have lots of limitations in terms of human resources, economy and in our thinking process,' he further added. Dr Azharul Islam Khan of ICDDR,B identified staff knowledge and attitude, structure of hospital management, supportive senior management and especially adaptive crisis management setup as the key reasons behind ICDDR,B's success during the flood in 2007. He recommended the government to establish satellite treatment centers in different areas of the country with staff trained from ICDDR,B in addition to adopting cholera cots and administering rice-based oral rehydration solutions to patients. Dr Rick Johnstone of UNICEF presented key findings of usefulness of Point Of Use (POU) water treatment during emergencies. From his experience during cyclone Sidr, he found Coagulant Disinfectant Tablets (PUR) were more effective in purifying water. Dr Mark Pietroni, administrator of ICDDR,B Dhaka Hospital, handed over a cholera cot to Prof Faiz at the seminar. ICDDR,B will provide DGHS with fifty cholera cot samples for replicating. Dr MM Jahangir Alam presented a study on management of diarrhoeal diseases in tertiary level at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital while Prof Dr Moazzem Hossain, director (disease control) and line director CDC of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and Dr Ishtiaque A Zaman of ICDDR,B were also present. The number of patients receiving treatment from ICDDR,B is more this year, compared to that of the previous year although the situation is not that severe, the experts said. The number of patients with diarrhoeal diseases has been increasing in different hospitals across the country since last week. According to the control room of DGHS around 2482 patients sought treatment for diarrhoea from Monday to Tuesday morning, which was 2263 in the previous 24 hours. However, the ICDDR,B experienced some 473 patients till 6:00pm yesterday, which was 450 on Monday.