Six patients who have contracted the Guillain Barré Syndrome (GBS) are currently being treated in the hospital in Madhya Pradesh Neemuch district where an outbreak has already claimed two lives, while nine have been discharged so far in the past two days.
No new case has been reported in the district since the last case on January 17, officials said, adding that the six people in hospital are in a stable condition.
The outbreak had been reported in Neemuch’s Manasa town when child and a teenager died on January 11 and January 13 respectively. 18 people have so far reported to have been infected.
Six patents recovered on Sunday (January 18) and three were discharged on Monday (January 19), Neemuch Collector Himanshi Chandra told The Hindu.
“After the second death on January 13, we were alerted and started tracing people. Manasa has a population of about 30,000 and one round of screening of everyone has been done and round two is currently underway. We have also listed people with any kind of illness and checking their symptoms,” he said.
Mr. Chandra also said that no bacteria like E-coli has been found in any of the water samples collected from the area so far.
“The samples, however, have been sent for further testing while some test reports are also awaited from NIV, Pune, and other cities. We will have a clarity on the source of infection once all the reports are in,” he said, while denying that there was any contamination in the government water supply line.
“Eight out of 15 wards of Manasa were affected. If it was spreading through water supply, we would have found a larger number of patients. If not GBS, there would have been more cases of diarrhoea which is not the case at the moment,” Mr. Chandra said, claiming that the situation is under control.
The Collector also said preventive measures are being taken across the district and water sources are being checked in all towns and villages.
“We are chlorinating all water sources to maintain 0.2ppm levels. The chances of an infection through water sources are very slim as quality checks were already being undertaken in the district,” he said.
This is the second such outbreak in Madhya Pradesh in the past one month. A diarrhoea outbreak in a locality in Indore has already claimed more than 15 lives due to contaminated water supply by the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC).
The then-IMC Commissioner Dileep Kumar Yadav, who has been transferred following public’s anger against the civic body, was made the Managing Director of of the State Tourism Development Corporation (MPSTDC) within 20 days.
