| |
HEALTH: SILIGURI FEVER
Outbreak!
A disease kills 35 people in Siliguri but the cause of
infection remains unidentified
Anirban Ghosh's
right hand froze midway through lunch. His father, sitting across the
table from him, suddenly found parts of his son's body paralysed. He was
taken by surprise because the 24-year-old had only complained of fever
and bodyache. Three days later, Anirban died.
 |
|
|
IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: A rickshaw-puller breaks
down at his dying wife's bedside
|
|
Anirban was one of the 35 people struck down
by a "mystery disease" in Siliguri till March 1. When five people
died on the night of February 25, concern turned to panic. Reports of
five deaths in neighbouring Jalpaiguri and North Dinajpur districts and
one in Sikkim trickled in, fuelling rumours of an epidemic. Almost overnight
Siliguri turned into a ghost town. Shops, schools and offices closed down,
and residents either stayed indoors or rushed away from the north Bengal
town. With word out that the disease could be infectious, people walked
around in surgical masks and gloves.
The state Government has been able to do precious
little about the situation or the panic. Even the nature of the disease
is still uncertain. It was initially thought to be cerebral malaria, then
Japanese encephalitis. Somewhere along the way, the administration also
sent out plague warnings. In the mad scramble for tetracycline tablets
that followed, over one lakh sold out in two days. Last week, a delegation
of experts from the World Health Organisation, the National Institute
of Virology, Pune, and the Centre for Communicable Disease, Delhi, arrived
in Siliguri. They collected blood samples, cerebro-spinal fluid, swabs
and other body fluids from victims and studied the cases. "It's some
kind of viral encephalitis," guesses Dr J.C. Gandhi, who heads the
team. Doctors at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH)
started a parallel investigation and suspect it could a water-borne infection
caused by the bacteria Legionella pneumonie.
Compounding the problem, resident doctors in
Siliguri are trying to leave. Twelve doctors have already fled, another
six were apprehended by vigilant citizens at Bagdogra Airport and New
Jalpaiguri station. Medical practitioners form the highest-risk group.
Although no one knows where the illness came from, its epicentre seems
to be the privately run Medinova Florence Nursing Home. The institution
has already lost 10 of its doctors, nurses and paramedics; seven others
are being treated at NBMCH, two nurses at the Infectious Diseases Hospital
in Calcutta and a doctor in Delhi. "All the other 25 victims had
something or the other to do with Medinova," says Professor Dipti
Basu, principal of NBMCH. While the nursing home has now been sealed off,
its officials are absconding.
The creeping nature of the ailment (it starts
with mild fever and headaches) and its contagious run are scary. And the
rapid shutdown of organs underscores its fatality rate. Ashish Chowdhury,
35, went from high fever to a fatal respiratory failure in 20 minutes
while his wife looked on.
Citizens' responses have been varied-from driving
out nurses and paramedics in the Shaktigarh, Vanunagar and Pradhan Nagar
localities to cleaning up Siliguri, a town with 151 slums. A group of
19 NGOs is also disbursing medical supplies and monitoring the spread
of the illness.
With assembly polls around the corner, Left
Front leaders like Urban Affairs Minister Asok Bhattacharya-he was elected
from the Siliguri constituency) are embarrassed by the outbreak. "Not
a single case is from Siliguri," says Bhattacharya. "They've
come from outside, from the districts." Last week, when Health Minister
Partha De was asked if the ailment had been identified, his callous retort
was, "It's only been a few days. What's the hurry?" Some more
lives might be saved if he were a little more hurried.
-Labonita
Ghosh
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives