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Health teams probe cause of illness after 6 children die in Rajasthan district
Block chief health and medical officer said that medical teams are screening children from schools and anganwadis, took samples from over 1,000 kids on Wednesday
Medical teams are conducting an on-ground investigation to determine the cause of an illness that has killed six children in Salumber and left 25 others hospitalised in Udaipur and Salumber as of Tuesday night after they developed fever.
Block Chief Health and Medical Officer (BCMO) Sintu Kumawat said that the teams are now screening children from schools and anganwadis and took samples from over 1,000 kids on Wednesday.
At least six toddlers — all of whom were aged between two and four years — have died in the last five days in Salumber’s Ghata and Lalpura villages.
Manuram Meena, father of four-year-old Deepak, who died on April 1, said his son’s health deteriorated within an hour and that doctors declared him dead upon arrival at the hospital.
“Deepak suddenly got fever after morning tea. Soon, he started vomiting and also reported trouble in breathing. We immediately rushed him to the local primary health centre where he was declared dead. They could not specify the exact disease yet,” Manuram said.
Four-year-old Seema died on April 1 after complaining of similar symptoms. So did four-year-old Laxman Meena, two-year-old Kajal Meena, and four-year-old Rahul Meena; all three died on Monday.
Meanwhile, no postmortem was conducted on the deceased. “The government released the victims’ bodies without performing an autopsy, which was crucial to trace the disease and prevent it from spreading further. The families have now also cremated the bodies,” local sarpanch of the Ghata gram panchayat Nand Lal said.
BCMO Kumawat said an autopsy was important to detect the disease, but the families of the deceased refused to conduct an autopsy on their children. “Many of them also brought their kids back home against medical advice. Later they also cremated the bodies. However, we are trying to intensify the survey and analyse the samples in detail to trace the disease as soon as possible,” he said.
Two teams of health officials from Udaipur and Jaipur, who arrived in Salumber on Tuesday morning, collected blood, stool, and saliva samples from children (up to 15 years old) from 561 households under the Ghata gram panchayat.
The teams found 25 more children with similar symptoms who were immediately referred to the local community health centre and to the RNT Hospital in Udaipur for treatment.
Jagadish Meena, who admitted his five-year-old son, Subhash, to RNT Medical College in Udaipur on Tuesday after he had a fever and vomiting, said, “He had chana dal and roti around 10 pm on Monday. Soon he fell sick; we got scared and called the doctor, who rushed him to the local CHC, from where he was referred to RNT on Tuesday. He is being given saline water. Doctors have also collected his blood samples. He is stable, but they want to keep him under observation.”
“Laxmi (10) didn’t even eat or drink anything when she fell sick. She was absolutely fine before that. We have no idea what happened to her,” said Laxmi’s father, Alaram Meena, adding that she was playing in front of their house early on Tuesday morning when she fell sick.
