One dead, 300 in hospital as mystery illness hits Andhra's Eluru town

ELURU: A “mysterious” ailment has hit Andhra Pradesh’s Eluru town, with one death and around 300 residents hospitalised with complaints of seizures, sudden loss of consciousness, frothing and shivering. The patient who died was undergoing treatment at Eluru government hospital, even as local health authorities remained clueless about the “disease” or what had triggered the symptoms in people living in a vast area with no common epidemiological link.
It all began on Saturday with 45 people from four different Eluru localities showing strange symptoms.Those hospitalised included 46 children and 70 women. The nervous system seems to have been affected. But the causative agent is not clear.
With local health authorities ruling out water or food contamination, an expert team from AIIMS, Delhi, interacted with government doctors in Eluru to diagnose the strange health issue.
Local health authorities said they would know the exact cause only after they get the reports of cerebral-spinal fluid samples sent to laboratories in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.
Health experts are looking into various angles, including chemical poisoning through air pollution or contaminated milk. Some believe that it is a case of mass hysteria.
Officials said they are providing symptomatic treatment. “We are watching the health condition of patients who fell sick at Eluru. Two kids admitted at the old government hospital in Vijayawada are doing well. We are waiting for test reports. In my 25 years of service, I have never seen such cases,” said Dr Suhasini, DM&HO, Krishna.