A mysterious vector-borne disease has gripped several villages of this coastal district in Orissa and doctors suspect migrant labourers and truck drivers to be the suspected carriers.
There was widespread report of the disease in all the nine blocks of the district. Since the past one month, over 1000 people, including children were infected by the mystery fever. health department sources said.
Doctors said the disease afflicting the people could either be Chikungunya or Dengue and it comes under highly infectious category of fever.
This region records annual exodus of its human resources to country's other parts in search of employment. The migrant workers get infected in their workplaces and carry home the vector-borne virus in course of their return journey, the doctors said.
Besides the migrants, truck drivers who take night break in truck terminus along the Paradip-Daitary expressway could be the carrier of the disease. The virus probably spread from the truck terminus to the village areas. Some residents earn livelihood vending commodities at the terminus, observed health personnel.
Meanwhile the medical teams that took stock of the situation in affected villages collected larva samples from stagnant water bodies while dispatching it for entomological test.
"There is abysmal lack of sanitation in majority of affected villages. The localities hit by virus borne disease was replete with stagnant water accumulation leading to the breeding of mosquitoes", according to the medical team.
{{/usCountry}}"There is abysmal lack of sanitation in majority of affected villages. The localities hit by virus borne disease was replete with stagnant water accumulation leading to the breeding of mosquitoes", according to the medical team.
{{/usCountry}}Though the disease has spread rapidly in the villages, the situation has been brought under control, the health department officials said.