Rajouri/Jammu, Jan 22: Four people, including three sisters, have been shifted to hospitals from Badhaal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district where a mysterious illness has claimed 17 lives over the past one-and-a-half months.
A central team continued its investigation into the cause of the deaths, which took place in three families, on Wednesday. A senior doctor part of the investigations said over 200 samples have been sent for testing to different institutes.
Three sisters, aged between 16 and 22, were shifted to the Government Medical College (GMC), Rajouri from Badhaal after their health suddenly deteriorated on Wednesday. Another critically ill patient, Javid Ahmad (24), was referred to PGI Chandigarh from GMC Rajouri on Tuesday evening, the officials said.
All four are close relatives of the three families that lost their members to the mysterious illness, they said.
Meanwhile, the inter-ministerial team from New Delhi visited Badhaal in Kotranka sub-division for the third straight day as part of its investigation, the officials said.
The team headed by a director-rank officer in the Ministry of Home Affairs reached Rajouri district headquarters on Sunday evening and was briefed by senior district, health and police officers. It is camping in Rajouri town.
Senior epidemiologist and head of Community Medicines Department, GMC Rajouri, Shuja Qadri said all the investigations so far make it clear that the deaths in the village were not the result of any communicable disease. So, the probe has been narrowed down to the identification of the toxin in food items.
“Based on our epidemiological investigation, as of now, we have reached some probable conclusions, which will be confirmed by lab diagnosis… it is something which is connected with food,” Qadri, who is part of the investigations, told PTI.
More than 200 food samples have been sent for screening to various institutes across the country to isolate the neurotoxin. Hopefully, based on the panel of toxins, the laboratories will be in a position to isolate the toxin within a week or 10 days and “we can easily take the control measures to prevent further deaths”.
“If you see the sequence of cases, they came over a period of time. That means it is something which is coming intermittently. They are consumed either accidentally or deliberately. That is again a question of investigation,” he said. (PTI)
