Hepatitis B as scary as the blast

Modasa (Sabarkantha): Fear looms over this town of Sabarkantha district which was last in the news for the mysterious bomb blast outside a mosque and is now seeing people die of hepatitis B.
Regular visitors to this town avoid it like the plague. "Since the epidemic outbreak, people from across the district regularly visited it, have stopped, fearing they might get infected with hepatitis B.My daily business has gone down by half'," says Salim Chisti, a fruit vendor near Modasa bus stand.
A resident, Usman Lala says, "We fear hepatitis could claim anybody and don't know how to avoid it. Those infected are dying within a week. There should be more awareness".
It is a common sight to find people wearing masks while driving on roads and keeping a distance from patients. "At the institutional level we asked our students to come with pure drinking water from home. We even cleaned up water tanks in the school. And any child who has a fever is sent to hospital," says Saeed Ahmed Bhura, president of Makdum Education Society. The trust houses more than 3,200 students on campus.