NEW DELHI — Three years ago, Dr. Rajesh Yadav, an investigator with the India Epidemic Intelligence Service, moved to the city of Muzaffarpur, the site of one of the country’s most mysterious outbreaks. And he waited.
Every year in mid-May, as temperatures reached scorching heights, parents took children who had been healthy the night before to the hospital. The children awakened with a high-pitch cry in the early morning, many parents said.
Then the youths began having seizures and slipping into comas. In about 40 percent of cases, they died.
Every year in July, with the arrival of monsoon rains, the outbreak ended as suddenly as it began.
Beginning in 1995, investigations variously ascribed the phenomenon to heat stroke; to infections carried by rats, bats or sand flies; or to pesticides used in the region’s ubiquitous lychee orchards. But there were few signposts for investigators.
Instead of occurring in clusters, the illness typically struck only one child in a village, often leaving even siblings unaffected.
A joint investigation by India’s National Center for Disease Control and the India office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, published in the British medical journal The Lancet Global Health on Tuesday, has identified a surprising culprit: the lychee fruit itself, when eaten on an empty stomach by malnourished children.
In 2015, as a result of the investigation, health officials began urging parents in the area to be sure to feed young children an evening meal and to limit their consumption of lychees (sometimes spelled litchi).
In two seasons, the number of reported cases per year dropped to less than 50 from hundreds.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.