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Thirteen tribals have succumbed to an as yet unidentified disease in Gaduthuru village in Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh over the last fortnight.
The mysterious disease, with symptoms similar to cholera, created such a scare that many tribals from the village and five surrounding hamlets have fled to other places for safety.
The village has a population of 600.
The deaths came to light at a videoconference held by state Health and Medical Minister Dr Kodela Sivaprasada Rao with district medical and health officers on Monday following the outbreak of viral fever and gastroenteritis in the state.
What makes the deaths puzzling is that most of them occurred on a single street of the village.
The first death was that of a 45-year-old man on September 3, and by September 9 eight more deaths were recorded. After an all too brief respite three people died on September 13 at Gompan hamlet and one at Magathapalem hamlet. No further deaths have been reported over the last four days.
After the first two deaths, the villagers burnt down the houses of the victims, suspecting the handiwork of evil forces. Worse, fearing trouble, the family members of other patients locked them up in rooms or shifted them to relatives' houses, which added to the fatalities.
The villagers neither reported the outbreak of the disease to the authorities nor did they allow doctors into the village to treat the patients, who were simply allowed to die. The superstitious villagers even concealed a woman patient when the team from King George Hospital went to the village for investigating the deaths.
Of the 13 dead, seven were males and six females. Three of the victims were over 70 years of age and the others were in the 12 to 50 age-group.
An inter-disciplinary team of doctors from King George Hospital along with district incharge M T Krishna Babu visited the village on Sunday to ascertain the exact cause of the deaths. Their preliminary findings were that the deaths were caused by dehydration due to vomiting and loose motions.
Since the deaths were confined to some persons in a few houses on a single street and their relatives, the medical team collected blood and stool samples of the family members and other sick persons in the village to detect the presence of e-coli bacteria. One woman is currently said to be suffering from the symptoms, but is stated to be responding to treatment.
The district collector has sanctioned Rs 10,000 each under the National Family Benefit Scheme for families of male victims and Rs 5000 each for families of female victims.
A medical team has been stationed in the village to administer preventive medicines to all the villagers, who have been advised not to go to work during the three-day observation period.
The health minister has taken the district medical and health officer to task for not reporting the deaths to the regional joint director who visited the nearby Paderu primary health center on September 6. By then, six persons had died and by the time the medical teams visited the village, the death toll had gone up to 13.
The minister also asked the regional joint director to inquire into the matter and submit a report within three days recommending action against the erring officials.
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