4 including 3 siblings die in fresh incident of mysterious illness

Rajouri, Jan 13: Three siblings, two brothers and their sister, and their elderly relative have died while three of their sisters have been hospitalised in fresh incident of mysterious illness in remote Badhaal village of Rajouri district.

The village falls in Kotranka sub division of border district of Rajouri.

Eight members of two families had already lost their lives in similar incidents of mysterious illness. A pregnant woman from one of the family had also died after losing her three children. The death toll in such incidents was nine earlier.

Officials said that in the fresh incident reported now four deaths have occured since Sunday afternoon while three other people are hospitalised.

The deceased include Nabeena Akhter (5) daughter of Mohammad Aslam, her elder brothers Zahoor Ahmed (14) and Mohammad Maroof (8) and their elderly relative Mohammad Yousuf.

Officials said that six children of Mohammad Aslam fell ill with multiple symptoms resembling earlier deaths and they all were brought in Community Health Center (CHC) Kandi in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday from where they were taken to GMC Associated Hospital Rajouri.

From there, the officials stated, two siblings were earlier referred to GMC Jammu's SMGS Hospital on Sunday morning while other four on Sunday afternoon and evening.

Since Sunday morning, the officials further said, three of these siblings died while their three siblings (three sisters) have been hospitalised in SMGS Hospital Jammu.

The three sisters include Yasmeen Akhter (16), Safeena Kouser (12) and Zabina Kouser (10) who were referred to Jammu from GMC Associated Hospital Rajouri on Sunday.

Meanwhile, on Monday, officials further said, another patient was hospitalised and he died. He been identified as Mohammad Yousuf.Yousuf, maternal uncle of these deceased, reportedly developed some symptoms on Monday afternoon after which he was shifted to CHC Kandi from where he was further referred to GMC Associated Hospital Rajouri but died.

Meanwhile, a team of Jammu and Kashmir health department visited the affected village on Monday and is still camping there.

The team is headed by Director Health Services Jammu, Dr Rajesh Mangotra with several doctors from department and some from Medical College. They have also taken up necessary medical screening as well as contact tracing and samples.

On the other hand, officials informed, a high level team of medical experts and doctors including from National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and experts from a renowned institute of Chennai are set to arrive in the area by next one or two days.

The team deputed by higher authorities will reportedly take up necessary contact tracing, sampling procedure to put in efforts to ascertain cause of death.

However, the cause of these deaths is yet not clear which is further creating fear among the local population. They are waiting for reports of all collected samples so that causes of these deaths becomes clear.

Earlier, officials stated, Fazal Hussain and his four children died on December 8 with this mysterious illness which was earlier taken as food poisoning.

Later, on December 13 three siblings lost their lives to this mysterious illness while their mother, who was into her sixth month of pregnancy, died nine days later. Some pregnancy complications are being suspected to be the cause of her death.