‘Unknown fever’ kills 14 people in 6 days in Kutch

Notably, the deceased are all from the Jat Maldhari community, a shepherding tribe. While six deceased are children between five and 16 years of age, three are between 18-20 years, two are 30-32 years old and three others are between 44 and 50 years. The deceased include five women and nine men.

Primary clinical investigation showed that while at least 10 of these patients died due to pneumonitis and/or severe respiratory distress and respiratory tract infection, two died of myocardial infarctions (heart attacks), one suffered a fatal ischemic stroke (brain stroke), and another was a patient of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (blood cancer).

“Prima facie, since it does not look like a communicable disease, they look like influenza cases as there is no clustering of cases on record. The cases, in the past one week, have been reported from the villages of Bekhada, Sandhivand and Bharavandh of Lakhpat taluka. Primarily, it appears to be influenza and pneumonitis after the heavy rainfall,” Kutch collector Amit Arora told The Indian Express.

As on Sunday, the Kutch region recorded the highest of 183 per cent average rainfall in the southwest monsoon this season, according to State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) Gandhinagar. Lakhpat taluka has received 672 mm rainfall (175 per cent).

Speaking to media persons, State Health Minister Rushikesh Patel said the government has taken note of the 12 deaths that were recorded in the past 3-4 days. “Health expert teams, including microbiologists, a paediatrician, an epidemiologist and public health teams have been sent. All affected areas are also to be surveyed for which the report is to be submitted in two days,” Patel said.

Dr Chetan Mehta, the Regional Deputy Director (RDD) of Medical Services in for Saurashtra-Kutch, told The Indian Express, “An RRT has been sent and they have begun their investigation on Sunday afternoon. They will be looking at various angles since the clinical presentation is that of pneumonitis. The team of 10 doctors includes physicians, medicine experts, pediatricians, pathologists and microbiologists, who will try to correlate factors and clinical symptoms.”

Vet teams are on the ground to rule out zoonotic diseases. “We sent a veterinary team there. They went to Bekhada village and we first inspected the owners, the cattle and the premises. We have found that no animal deaths have taken place in the previous 10 days of the human deaths. So that has been ruled out,” Dr RD Patel, Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry in Kutch, told The Indian Express.

It was also suspected that consumption of infected meat of any of these cattle was a probable cause. “However, that has been ruled out because microorganisms are rendered dead above 70 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, we have drawn samples of the cattle, including buffaloes, cows and goats, which are in almost all the families because this is a predominantly shepherding community,” Dr Patel added.

The Rapid Response Teams (RRT) that have been dispatched from Gandhinagar and PDU Medical College Rajkot are collecting samples, including that of the family members of the deceased, for diseases such as malaria, dengue, Congo fever, and H1N1 swine flu, among others, Arora confirmed. Some samples will be tested at the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre (GBRC) in Gandhinagar, he added.

Since clustering has been ruled out, the RRT will decide areas from where samples would be collected, he told The Indian Express. “We are not able to pin-point the cause at the moment as one of these deaths is due to cardiac arrest. Samples are being collected of the family members. Also, fever cases at the health centres of surrounding villages are also being sent for testing,” he added.

Meanwhile, a survey by the local health teams is also underway at five villages in the affected area of Lakhpat and Abdasa talukas. By Sunday evening, the 25 teams had conducted house-to-house surveys of 270 households comprising 1,381 people of the total population of 2,234.

Kutch district panchayat member Meenaba Jadeja, in a letter to Gujarat Congress chief Shaktisinh Gohil, claimed 12 persons in the 5-50 age group have died between September 3 and 9 due to fever in Bekhada, Sanandro, Morgar and Bharavandh villages in Lakhpat taluka.

“Persons with fever were earlier admitted to a private hospital at Vermanagar town in Lakhpat taluka. They were then taken to Dayapar CHC and finally to Bhuj general hospital. One patient was shifted to Ahmedabad. They died without recovering from the fever,” former Lakhpat panchayat member Hussain Rayma said.

According to residents, patients had fever, cold, cough, pneumonia and were having difficulty breathing, while another district panchayat member Mamd Jung Jat said doctors had not been able to make an accurate diagnosis of the disease.

– With PTI inputs