Amid the rising cases of the ‘mystery illness’ in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri that has claimed at least 17 lives, experts said that an organophosphorus toxin is causing the disease. According to sources, an antidote to counteract organophosphorus poisoning has been administered and it has worked well for patients who are admitted to hospital.

“We have used atropine antidote and it’s worked well. After the exact nature of the toxin was determined we gave atropine to patients” said a senior official.

While experts have been maintaining that it is a case of neurotoxins after ruling out communicable disease or outbreaks of viruses or bacteria behind deaths in Badhaal village, determining the exact nature of toxins had become a challenge and deepened the mystery. On Sunday, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India finally conveyed to the Jammu and Kashmir health department that organophosphorus had been found and it was the reason behind deaths.

“Now it’s a matter of investigation if the use of organophosphorus in the food and water is homicidal or accidental,” said an official.

The Jammu and Kashmir police have formed a special investigation team, or SIT, to investigate the deaths.

Last week, authorities declared the village a containment zone and quarantined more than 200 people.

Apart from this, officials found insecticides in a spring where villagers drew water. It has been sealed for investigation. Food items used by the villagers were also tested.

According to doctors, the common factor among all the people who died was the involvement of brain and nerve system.

Rajouri/Jammu:

Authorities have cancelled all leaves of doctors and paramedics in the wake of a medical alert following the deaths of 17 people from Badhaal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district due to a mysterious illness. The number of people sent to quarantine has risen to 230.

Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh said the initial investigation conducted by the toxicology laboratory in Lucknow concluded that the cause was not any infection, virus or bacteria but a toxin.

Principal of Rajouri Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital, Dr Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, on Friday addressed a press conference in Rajouri and announced that all leaves of doctors and paramedic staff have been cancelled. “The winter vacations have also been cancelled to deal with the medical alert situation after 17 people from three families died under mysterious conditions in the last one-and-a-half months,” he said.

He further said the Jammu and Kashmir government has deputed 10 additional medical students to GMC Rajouri to aid the medical setup amid the ongoing health situation.

The health condition of three persons undergoing treatment at GMC Hospital in Jammu and PGI Chandigarh is being monitored, officials said.

Four people, including three sisters, were shifted to hospitals, with three airlifted to a hospital in Jammu on Wednesday.

More persons, including relatives who had come in contact with the victim families, were sent on Friday to quarantine as a precautionary measure. As a precaution, more individuals, including close relatives of the victims, have been relocated to the Nursing College quarantine centre in Rajouri, increasing the number to 230, the officials said.

Strict security has been put in place at the Nursing College quarantine centre in Rajouri, which has been heavily secured and fenced, they added.

Several people who came into contact with the affected families, from taking children to the hospital to burying them, have also been identified, they said.

The Union minister said a thorough investigation is underway. “The initial investigation conducted by our toxicology laboratory in Lucknow concluded that it was not due to any infection, virus or bacteria but rather a toxin,” he said.

He added that the investigation into the nature of the toxin is going on. “There is a long series of toxins being tested. I believe a solution will be found soon. Additionally, if there was any mischief or malicious activity, that is also being investigated,” he said.

The remote Badhaal village was declared a containment zone on Wednesday, with prohibitory orders imposed on all public and private gatherings in the wake of the deaths, the officials said.

Seventeen people, including 13 children, from the families of Mohammad Fazal, Mohammad Aslam and Mohammad Rafiq in Badhaal village died due to a mysterious illness over the past one-and-a-half months.

Both the central team and police are continuing their separate probes into the deaths, they said.

A central team continued its investigation on Friday into the cause of the deaths which occurred in three families.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was set up by the police after certain neurotoxins were found in the samples of the victims, continued its probe into the criminal angle. They have questioned over 50 people in this case, the officials said.

Dr Bhatia revealed that the common factor among all 17 deaths is the involvement of the brain and damage to the nervous system. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Srinagar:

Doctors have found the cause behind the “mystery illness” that has claimed at least 17 lives in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri. The deaths had sparked fear and panic in Budhal village over the past month, leading to an inter-ministerial team being formed to find the cause of the illness. A team of health experts has now addressed the fears of the people and said the deaths were caused by neurotoxins.

All the victims had a common medical condition – brain swelling or edema, said Dr AS Bhatia, principal of Government Medical College (GMC), Rajouri told a press conference, also attended by the district’s chief medical officer, medical superintendent, and the local MLA.

Read: Special Team To Probe 15 Deaths In Jammu & Kashmir’s Rajouri Due To Mysterious Illness

Union Minister Jitendra Singh had earlier confirmed that no virus or bacteria were found in the victims’ samples during initial tests at a toxicology laboratory at CSIR, Lucknow. “A long series of toxins are being tested. If there is any mischief or any other mischief,” he had said.

The samples were later analysed at top laboratories in the country, including the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, which showed the presence of neurotoxins that resulted in brain damage, according to Dr Bhatia.

“We try to mitigate the problem of patients reporting with brain damage, but once the patient reports with serious brain damage, we cannot reverse the condition,” he added, assuring that the health department is actively monitoring the situation.

Containment Zone, Quarantine

Rajouri has been trying to battle the “mysterious illness” since early December. The 17 deaths, including 14 children, from three families had the centre and state authorities scrambling to find an answer. Six more teenagers, including three siblings, have fallen ill in the last two days and are being kept in isolation wards at GMC, Rajouri.

Authorities have quarantined over 200 people who had come into contact with the victims’ families. The close contacts from Budhal were shifted to the Nursing College, Rajouri for better preventive care on DC Abhishek Sharma’s directions, an official said.

Entire Budhal has been declared a containment zone and the district administration has set up facilities for families who were relocated.

GMC Rajouri has also strengthened its arrangements with five more child specialities and five anaesthesia specialists being put on duty. All types of advanced technology are there to handle any emergency situation, confirmed Dr Bhatia.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah visited Rajouri earlier this week and assured the citizens that the central and state authorities are trying to find the reason behind the deaths.

An inter-ministerial team was formed by the Union Home Ministry last week to probe the unexplained deaths.

A school in UK’s Brixham has been forced to shut after hundreds of people in the town were struck down with a diarrhoea bug caused by contaminated tap water. As per a Metro report, the illness is believed to be linked to cryptosporidium, a parasitic bug that causes severe stomach issues.

The parasite latches onto human intestines and can cause gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. It can spread through swimming in or consuming contaminated water, but can also be passed on in food. Symptoms include watery diarrhoea, stomach pains, nausea or vomiting, a mild fever, and loss of appetite. An expert warned that those struck down by the parasite could be ill for up to a month. 

Residents in Brixham, Boohay, Kingswear, Roseland and North East Paignton in Devon have now been advised not to drink directly from the tap and boil it before consumption. 

Tanya Matthews, who lives in Ocean View, claims every home in her street has come down with the same symptoms. She told DevonLive: “I started having stomach cramps and explosive diarrhoea nine days ago and it has been the same every day since. I started to feel a little bit better yesterday than today [May 14] it hit me again.”

As a result, people have been panic-buying bottled water. It is unclear where the parasite came from, and how it got into the water supply.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has announced it is collaborating with local councils to probe the outbreak. South West Water has confirmed that its water quality tests in Brixham have so far returned clear results.

South West Water commented: “We are working with public health partners to urgently investigate the source. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and will continue to keep customers and businesses updated.”

The water firm further stated: ”Customers in Alston and the Hillhead area of Brixham are advised to boil their drinking water before consuming following new test results for cryptosporidium. We are issuing this as a precaution following small traces of the organism identified overnight and this morning. We are working with public health partners to urgently investigate the source. For those customers registered for Priority Services we will be delivering bottled water to your address. ”

In the meantime, emergency bottled water stations have been set up for residents.

Alston and the Hillhead area of Brixham
We have set up a bottled water collection point at Broadsands Car Park TQ4 6HX which will be open until 10pm tonight and tomorrow (16/05/2024) from 6am – 9pm. In the meantime, we are delivering bottled water to vulnerable customers. pic.twitter.com/qLgVYYI8qC

— South West Water (@SouthWestWater) May 15, 2024

Professor Paul Hunter, a specialist in microbiology and infectious disease, said cases would continue to climb even after the source was found.

He said, “It’s difficult to know how big these outbreaks turn out to be and it depends on whether the contamination event is a very short-lived thing. The difficulty here is that cryptosporidium can take up to about 10 days before you become ill, so even if they stop the infection today we’d still see new cases occurring for at least another week to 10 days.”

There is no specific treatment for the bug, but patients are advised to drink plenty of fluids and rehydrate.

This undated photo supplied by Canberra Health Services, shows a parasite in a specimen jar at a Canberra hospital in Australia.
| Photo Credit: AP

A neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital says she plucked a wriggling worm from the patient’s brain.

Surgeon Hari Priya Bandi was performing a biopsy through a hole in the 64-year-old patient’s skull at Canberra Hospital last year when she used forceps to pull out the parasite, which measured 8 centimetres, or 3 inches.

“I just thought: ‘What is that? It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s alive and moving,’” Dr. Bandi was quoted on August 29 in The Canberra Times newspaper.

“It continued to move with vigour. We all felt a bit sick,” Dr. Bandi added of her operating team.

The creature was the larva of an Australian native roundworm not previously known to be a human parasite, named Ophidascaris robertsi. The worms are commonly found in carpet pythons.

Dr. Bandi and Canberra infectious diseases physician Sanjaya Senanayake are authors of an article about the extraordinary medical case published in the latest edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Senanayake said he was on duty at the hospital in June last year when the worm was found.

“I got a call saying: ‘We’ve got a patient with an infection problem. We’ve just removed a live worm from this patient’s brain,’” Dr. Senanayake told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The woman had been admitted to the hospital after experiencing forgetfulness and worsening depression over three months. Scans showed changes in her brain.

A year earlier, she had been admitted to her local hospital in southeast New South Wales state with symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhea, a dry cough and night sweats.

Dr. Senanayake said the brain biopsy was expected to reveal a cancer or an abscess.

“This patient had been treated… for what was a mystery illness that we thought ultimately was an immunological condition because we hadn’t been able to find a parasite before and then out of nowhere, this big lump appeared in the frontal part of her brain,” Dr. Senanayake said.

“Suddenly, with her [Bandi’s] forceps, she’s picking up this thing that’s wriggling. She and everyone in that operating theatre were absolutely stunned,” Dr. Senanayake added.

Six months after the worm was removed, the patient’s neuropsychiatric symptoms had improved but persisted, the journal article said.

She had returned home but remains under medical observation. Details of her current condition have not been made public.

The worms’ eggs are commonly shed in snake droppings which contaminate grass eaten by small mammals. The life cycle continues as other snakes eat the mammals.

The woman lives near a carpet python habitat and forages for native vegetation called warrigal greens to cook.
While she had no direct contact with snakes, scientists hypothesise that she consumed the eggs from the vegetation or her contaminated hands.