India’s southern state Andhra Pradesh is currently fighting a mysterious illness which has so far claimed the life of at least one person with 227 hospitalised since the outbreak.
According to reports by BBC, the patients being brought in have a wide range of symptoms from nausea to fits and falling unconscious, doctors on the scene said.
Officials have launched investigations into the cause of the illness, which the medical personnel so far have failed to identify ever since it hit the town of Eluru over the weekend.
As India continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, it’s among the countries with the highest cases recorded in the world putting in the second position. As of now, 9.6 million cases have been reported, 9.1 million are said to have recovered while 141,000 are those confirmed dead.
India’s Andhra Pradesh has been one of the worst-affected states – recording over 800,000 cases making it the country’s third-highest case count. However, Covid-19 doesn’t seem to be the reason behind the recent mass hospitalisations.
According to the state minister of Andhra Pradesh, Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas, all patients have been tested and none of them has the coronavirus. All tests have been negative so far, said the state minister.
“The people who fell sick, especially the children, suddenly started vomiting after complaining of burning eyes. Some of them fainted or suffered bouts of seizures,” a medical officer at Eluru Government Hospital told The Indian Express newspaper.
Reports also state that around seventy people have been discharged, while another 157 are still being treated at the hospitals, officials said.
Hundreds hospitalised in Andhra Pradesh due to mystery illness
The state’s chief minister, Jaganmohan Reddy, said that special medical teams are being sent to Eluru to investigate the cause of the illness. Mr Reddy is also expected to visit the town to meet the patients and their families.
Mr Srinivas said that the patients’ blood samples did not reveal any evidence of a viral infection.
“We ruled out water contamination or air pollution as the cause after officials visited the areas where people fell sick,” he said. “It is some mystery illness and only lab analysis will reveal what it is.”
However, the opposition Telugu Desam Party has called for an enquiry into the incident, insisting that contamination was the cause of the mystery illness.
For now, the medical personnel are doing whatever they can to save as many people as possible as they continue to carry out more tests to understand what is behind the mysterious illness that has put hundreds into the hospital.
Source: BBC
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