five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

[Anne]

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?cid=11075&lang=eng

Five persons, three of them members of the same family, died of an unknown disease in Nadia district, official sources said. While Nityananda Sarkar (48), of Kalinagar area, died on Friday at the ID Hospital where he had been admitted a few days back after developing flu-like symptoms and vomiting, three of his relatives - Tapas Majumder, his brother Timir and wife Sabita - of Tehatta area died one after another in the last fortnight after showing the same symptoms, the sources said. Meanwhile an employee of Chapra Hospital Govinda Sarkar also expired after developing the same symptoms. Sarkar had been to the house of the Majumders in Tehatta to collect blood when they were alive, the sources said. A medical team today visited the affected area and collected blood samples. The cause of the deaths could still not been diagnosed. )

anne :
west bengal is near Bengladesh , where some outbreaks in dhaka were descripted

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?TextLatitude=23.4072580686669&TextLongitude=88.3779350294377&TextAltitude=8&TextSelectedEntity=7894087&SearchEnc=false&MapStyle=Comprehensive&MapSize=Medium&MapStyleSelectedIndex=0&searchTextMap=dhaka+bengladesh&MapStylesList=Comprehensive&ZoomOnMapClickCheck=on&ResultsListbox=23.4072580686669%3B88.3779350294377%3B8%3B7894087%3BNadia+%5BNavadw%C4%ABp%5D%2C+West+Bengal%2C+India%3BMedium%3BComprehensive

 

[Nancy]

Re: five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

A few more details:

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=154911

Mystery fever fells more

Statesman News Service

KOLKATA/KRISHNAGAR, April. 28. — Yet another person fell victim to the mysterious disease in Nadia today. With the death of Nitya Gopal Sarkar (48) of Dakshin Kalinagar in Krishnagar, a staff of the Krishnagar municipality, died of the disease today the death toll of the disease reached five. Sarkar had also showed symptoms like fever, severe headache and vomiting.

District officials said that the victim is a relative of the Majumdar family at Tehatta which lost three family members over a span of 15 days after they were afflicted with the disease.

According to the vice-chairman of the Krishnagar civic body, Mr Ashim Saha, Mr Sarkar had recently gone to his relative’s house in Tehatta where his relatives were suffering from the mysterious disease.

Meanwhile, the state heath department has decided to send the samples collected from the affected and victims to the National Institute of Virology, Pune to identify the disease. Primarily, samples were sent to School of Tropical Medicine but as isolation of all viruses is not done here, samples would be sent to Pune, said senior health department officials.

Dr SN Dutta, joint director [public health], said that primarily it appeared to be a viral infection but the type of virus could be confirmed only after the samples are examined by NIV, Pune.

“There is nothing to panic. This is not a case of avian flu because no poultry bird died in the area,” he said.

 

[Nancy]

Re: five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

One more detail regarding the same story:

From The Statesman, "Briefs" April 28, 2007:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=22&id=182325&usrsess=1

Avian flu?
Yet another person died of a mysterious disease in Nadia today with the threat of the bird flu virus (H5N1) looming large. Over a span of 15 days, three people, including a woman from a family in Nadia?s Tehatta-I sub-division area, died of the mysterious disease, it is learnt. The victim, Govinda Sarkar (38), an X-Ray technician of the Chapra Rural Hospital, was also suffering from viral meningitis.

 

[Nancy]

Five flu-like cases in W Bengal tentatively identified as dengue

Five flu-like cases in W Bengal tentatively identified as dengue

From The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
April 29, 2007
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070429/asp/frontpage/story_7712796.asp

Fear of new dengue
OUR BUREAU
Calcutta/Krishnagar, April 28: A mystery fever that has killed five persons in Nadia district has been identified as a new strain of dengue after preliminary tests.

The state health department said the virus that had struck at Betai village in Nadia?s Tehatta block had so far proved fatal, unlike classical dengue.

?Preliminary reports suggest seven of the 21 samples have tested positive for a type of dengue,? Sanchita Bakshi, director of health services, said. ?Two teams from Swastha Bhavan and STM will visit the place on Monday.?

More tests will be required to conclusively establish that this is a new strain of dengue.

One person died of the disease today at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Beleghata. Nityagopal Chakraborty, who had visited his in-laws? place in Betai last week, was the fourth member of the family to pass away.

A friend of his, Gobinda Sarkar, died of the disease at B.P. Poddar Hospital last night. A resident of Krishnagar, Gobinda had accompanied Nityagopal to Betai recently.

?These patients had fever and later began to suffer from acute breathlessness and convulsions. Then they slipped into coma and died,? a critical care expert, Subrata Maitra, who treated both patients at B.P. Poddar, said. Nityagopal was shifted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital today.

A health department official said the duo?s blood test reports have yet to come. ?But since their symptoms were similar, it seems they had the same viral infection.?

The first such death was reported from Nadia this February. A three-member team from the School of Tropical Medicine visited Tehatta on Wednesday to collect blood samples from people suffering from mild to high fever.

Officials said people with acute symptoms were being referred to hospitals, including those in Calcutta. The only way to check this disease was to prevent accumulation of water as this facilitated breeding of mosquitoes, they said.

Mrinal Kanti Biswas, Nadia chief medical officer of health, said a district health team had been sent to Betai to check how many people had the same symptoms. An awareness drive has been launched.

As dengue is a viral disease, there is no specific cure for it. Paracetamol is prescribed for symptomatic relief. Aspirin prevents clotting but can be counter-productive in case of haemorrhagic dengue.

A family member of Nityagopal?s confirmed he had visited Betai after the three deaths. ?He had been there for the rituals on all three occasions.?

Gobinda, an X-ray technician at Chapra primary health centre, had had fever for five days. ?On Tuesday, he was admitted to a local nursing home but doctors could not diagnose his condition,? his brother Joydeb said.

 

[Nancy]

More on "new dengue" in Nadia, West Bengal

More on "new dengue" in Nadia, West Bengal

From The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
Monday, April 30, 2007

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070430/asp/bengal/story_7716910.asp

Dengue suspense for 31 in Nadia
OUR BUREAU

Krishnagar/Calcutta, April 29: Thirty-one people in Nadia are suffering from a mystery fever suspected to be a new strain of dengue that has already killed three, district authorities said today.

Thirty of them, including two who fell ill today, are from Betai village and one is from Krishnagunj.

Abhijit Kar, 35, and Jayanta Biswas, 40, have been admitted to a hospital in Krishnagar. Their blood samples have been sent to the School of Tropical Medicine (STM), Calcutta, for tests.

District magistrate Onkar Singh Meena, quoting a report from the state health department, today scaled down the death toll from the five reported yesterday.

He said Gobinda Sarkar and his friend Nityagopal Chakraborty had died of ?viral encephalitis? and not dengue.
Gobinda died at a private hospital in Calcutta on Friday while Nityagopal died at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Beleghata, yesterday.

Tests at the STM on seven patients have revealed that the fever is a new strain of dengue, different from the three known types ? classical, haemorrhagic and shock syndrome. ?Some of the samples will be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, to confirm it,? a health official said today.

However, some uncertainty prevails over the figures cited by the Nadia authorities in the absence of confirmed test results for all the patients.

Dilip Ghosh, 40, of Pabakhali in Krishnagunj, about 120 km from Calcutta, caught fever a month ago. He was admitted to the district hospital.

?The doctor can?t tell me what he is suffering from. Only two days ago, they had sent the samples to Calcutta and told me that they are not ruling out anything,? said his wife Anjali.

?We are collecting blood samples of all those who are falling sick and sending them to the STM. All BDO offices in the district have been alerted. The health team in Betai has been asked to be ready round the clock. Any deterioration in the situation has to be reported to the district headquarters,? said Meena.

Since the disease is spread by mosquitoes, which breed in stagnant water, block offices in the district have been asked to educate people about the dangers of allowing water to accumulate.

 

[Nancy]

Re: five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

EARLIER REPORT FROM APRIL 26 2007

The Statesman
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=2&id=182152&usrsess=1

Bird flu scare in Bengal
Pranesh Sarkar

KOLKATA, April 26: At a time when the deadly H5N1 or avian flu virus has created panic in the bordering districts of Bangladesh, the state health department appears to be groping in the dark, after three people from a family died of a mysterious disease in Nadia district over a span of 15 days.
The health department officials said that all the victims showed classical symptoms like high fever, severe headache, respiratory distress and vomiting which are common to all viral diseases including avian flu. The district health department had been put on high alert to contain spread of the disease.

A senior health department official at Swasthya Bhavan said the victims were from a family residing in Lalbazar village of Tehatta-I sub division in Nadia. On 9 April, 35-year-old Tapas Majumdar was found suffering from the disease. He died on 11 April at Tehatta Sub Divisional hospital. Tapas? brother Timir Majumdar (25) fell ill, on 13 April, and died on 23 April. On 23 April, Sabitri, widow of Tapas was admitted to the same hospital with the same symptoms. She died on Tuesday.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

Nipah virus stalking prey

Pranesh Sarkar

KOLKATA, May 3: According to preliminary observations of state health department officials about the mysterious disease that claimed five lives in Nadia, a new, deadly virus poses a stiff challenge.

Experts, after visiting the areas affected in the district, said the symptoms are similar to ailments caused by nipah, which is a newly recognised zoonotic virus. It is generally found in Malaysia and Bangladesh.

Dr Sanchita Baksi, the state?s director of health services, said: ?Though the symptoms are of nipah, we are yet to confirm the virus. It will become clear after we get the viscera report of a victim from the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

The nipah virus created a spot of bother in Siliguri a few years ago.? Various viral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Japanese encephalitis have caught the department unawares.

According to experts, the virus was ?discovered? in 1999. It has diseased animals and human beings and is infectious. The virus is named after the location where it was first detected in Malaysia.

Though the virus has only caused a few focal outbreaks, the virus?s biological property can infect a wide range of hosts and produce a disease causing significant mortality in humans. This emerging viral infection has become a public heath concern. It is believed that certain species of fruit bats are the natural hosts of the nipah virus.

The mode of transmission from animal to animal, and from animal to human is uncertain, but appears to require close contact with contaminated tissue or body fluids from infected animals. It is unlikely that the virus is easily transmitted to man, though previous outbreak reports suggest that nipah is transmitted from animals to humans.

The virus?s incubation period is between four and 18 days. The onset usually has ?influenza-like? symptoms with high fever and muscular pain. The disease may progress to inflamation of the brain (encephalitis) with drowsiness, disorientation, convulsions and coma.

Fifty per cent of clinically apparent cases die. No drug has proved effective in treating the nipah infection.

SNS adds: Specialist doctors of the Delhi?s National Institute of Communicable Diseases visiting the district was still at sea today about the mystery disease.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=22&id=182786&usrsess=1

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: five deaths of flu like symptomes in india

Rare Nipah virus outbreak kills 5 in eastern India

The Associated Press

Published: May 8, 2007


CALCUTTA, India: The rare, animal-borne Nipah virus has killed five people in an eastern Indian state, prompting authorities to declare a state of alert, officials said Tuesday.

A health official and four members of a family have died from the illness since early April, said Mohan Basu, a doctor in West Bengal state's Nadia district.

The Nipah virus is usually spread by fruit bats or pigs. There have been no known cases of human-to-human infection, according to the World Health Organization.

The last major Nipah outbreak occurred in Malaysia, where 265 people were infected in 1998-99. The virus was then blamed for 105 human deaths.

Nearly a million pigs, believed to have spread the disease, were slaughtered before the Malaysian outbreak was controlled.

The virus, which causes encephalitis, is lethal in about 50 percent of infected humans. No drugs have proven effective against it.

Nadia is 120 kilometers (75 miles) from West Bengal's capital of Calcutta and borders Bangladesh, which had a Nipah outbreak in 2004.

"Initially we thought that the cases were of dengue (a mosquito-borne viral disease), but a test later confirmed that it was Nipah virus that caused the deaths," Basu said.

The outbreak was confirmed by the region's senior health official, Nipati Roy. The virus was found in samples that were sent to the National Institute of Virology.

"We are sending streams of blood samples taken from bats and pigs and even household pets," Basu said. "We are keeping a close surveillance."

Basu said he suspected that the virus had been spread by fruit bats in Nadia, and that residents have been warned to avoid the flying mammals.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/08/asia/AS-MED-India-Nipah-Virus.php