Officials in a tizzy as ‘mysterious illness’ claims two more lives in J&K’s Rajouri

Two more deaths on Monday due to a “mysterious illness” in a Rajouri village has set the alarm bells ringing in the Jammu and Kashmir health department officials.

An 8-year-old boy and a 62-year-old man succumbed to the “mysterious illness” that also claimed the lives of two minors a day ago--on Sunday.

The Badhal village under Kotranka sub-division has been grappling with a “mysterious disease” that have claimed 12 lives since December 7 last year.

Six siblings from the village in Rajouri district were taken to community health centre at Kotranka on Saturday evening, where two of them--a 5-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy--died on Sunday and one of them succumbed to illness on Monday morning during treatment at SMGS Hospital here.

The 62-year-old deceased identified as MohammadYousuf is also related to one of three families and died due to similar symptoms on Monday evening.

The three other siblings, aged 16, 12 and 10 are still under treatment.

“Father of the six children brought them to the community health centre at Kotranka on Saturday evening with symptoms of fever, vomit and episodic loss of consciousness etc. They were referred to SMGS Hospital in Jammu where two of the six children died on Sunday and a third died on Monday,” said a health official.

The mysterious illness, initially considered to be food poisoning, has baffled health experts from across the country.

Health experts from National Institute of Virology, Pune, Indian Council of Medical Research New Delhi, PGI, Chandigarh, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Delhi, had visited Badhal village in December last year and collected human, water and environmental samples.

“The samples were sent to various laboratories across the country. Their full findings are still awaited. However, we have got to know in our researches that deaths are not happening due to viral infection. The disease is also not communicable,” said officials.

“Four more deaths in a span of two days, on Sunday and Monday, strongly point towards some sort of toxicity that is causing deaths. Further, 12 deaths have taken place in three families, which are inter-related to each other and belong to the same village,” said a top health functionary who did not want to be named.

“Had there been infection or food poisoning then entire village would have been in its grip. This is not an issue related to public health,” he added.

The official further said, “Unless we get viscera report from the Jammu and Kashmir FSL and findings by the DRDO lab on certain tests related to toxicology, it would be premature for us to say anything with logical conclusion.”

The official claimed that the reports were expedited but there are certain mandatory investigative procedures that take time to arrive at a logical conclusion.

He informed that the health authorities have initiated preventive measures.

Jammu and Kashmir health minister Sakina Masood Itoo said, “Various tests, including influenza, H1N1 and HMPV have ruled out the possibility of any viral infection. Initial deaths happened between two related families in December last year. Now, after a gap of over a month, four deaths happened in the past two days in another family, which is also related to the two families, So, there are families, which are inter-related to each other.”

“Some tests have been done and some more investigations are being done because exact cause of deaths is not known yet,” she added.

The health minister said that experts were conducting more investigations to pinpoint the cause of deaths.

On December 7 and 12, at least eight members of a family from Badhal village died to the mysterious illness.