Unidentified disease claims thirteen children in Gurgaon

Four more children with similar symptoms are currently struggling for life at the Delhi hospital, while at least 15 others are said to be admitted in private nursing homes in Gurgaon. Incidentally, all the affected children were first treated by private medical practitioners in Gurgaon. Most of them who landed up at the Delhi hospital with serious complications and subsequently succumbed to the ailment were referred by one clinic.

Medical experts here are puzzled by the illness. They have already ruled out diarrhoea,cholera and dengue. Though diarrhoea, vomiting and fever are common during this time of the year, what is startling about the present outbreak is that the children suffered renal failure despite the symptomatic treatment.

According to Dr A K Dutta, well-known pediatric expert and head of the Kalawati Saran hospital, the disease seems to be caused by some virus in which kidneys are severally affected.

8220;In other diseases where the kidney is involved, the patients usually respond to peritonital dialysis in which toxins accumulated in the kidney due to blockage of urine are flushed out. In the above cases, however, the children were not passing urine despite the necessary medication to facilitate the same and died even after dialysis,8221; he told The Indian Express today.

Alarmed by the unusually large number of deaths, a special team of researchers from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases NICD, New Delhi rushed to Gurgaon yesterday to take stock of the situation. The rapid response teamhas also collected the blood and stool samples of both the affected and unaffected children. The hospital has now sent the kidney biopsies as well to investigate all possible aspects of the disease.

Dutta and the members of the expert team admitted that they were indeed finding it difficult to accurately diagnose the ailment even as the toll was mounting. They insisted that it could not be labelled as an epidemic. The cases, they said, were not concentrated in a particular part of the city but were scattered all over the rural and urban pockets of district like Kirti Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, Shivaji Nagar, Nathupur, Naurangpur, Garhi Harsaru, Dharampur and Hailey Mandi.

In all the cases, the children from a serious condition in which the toxins accumulated in the body due to stoppage of urine starts affecting the brain. This condition, coupled with deep breathing and high blood pressure in some cases, is what is puzzling the experts.