Suspected food poisoning: Health experts reach Jammu to help police on 7 deaths in Rajouri
Seven persons (a man and his four children and two siblings of another couple) died in Badhal village in Kotranka in two separate incidents on December 8 and 12
Experts from three premier health institutions of the country reached here on Saturday to help police in the ongoing investigations into recent death of seven persons from two families, allegedly due to food poisoning, in a remote village of Rajouri district.
Seven persons (a man and his four children and two siblings of another couple) died in Badhal village in Kotranka in two separate incidents on December 8 and 12.
Health officials suspected food poisoning as the cause of their deaths.
Principal of the government medical college Jammu, Dr Ashutosh Gupta, said that the preliminary investigation suggested viral infections behind the deaths.
“However, more work needs to be done to reach to a logical conclusion. Team of experts from the National Institute of Virology, Pune, PGI Chandigarh and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Delhi, arrived today to assist in the investigations,” said Dr Gupta.
“More time is required to study and analyse to know whether the deaths were caused by a virus outbreak or some toxins,” he added.
He, however, said situation was totally under control and there was no need to panic. “No other case has come to light so far,” he informed.
For the past two days, the health department teams have screened the entire population of over 1,800 villagers for any abnormal symptoms like fever, body aches and drowsiness but no patient was found with such symptoms.