M A I N   N E W S

Plague case
NICD team to visit PGI
S.P. Sharma
Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 13
A team of doctors of the Delhi-based National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has been summoned following positive signs of pneumatic plague in a woman patient at Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) here today.

IGMC sources told this correspondent in the evening that “yersinia pestis” bacteria had been found in the sputum of the patient who was brought to IGMC from Hatkoti village of Rohru due to symptoms of plague.

Another person, Randhir (35), has already died of the same disease and his wife is admitted in a critical condition at PGI, Chandigarh. Three patients were being treated at their house in Hatkoti village while two were admitted in IGMC and the Rohru hospital. Four patients with similar symptoms have been sent to the PGI for treatment.

The team of the NICD will visit the PGI tomorrow morning before proceeding to Hatkoti village where the unidentified disease has claimed a life. Nine others are having similar symptoms.

Although it was suspected to be a pneumatic plague case, but the authorities were waiting for the report of the NICD team.

The state government summoned the doctors of the NICD this afternoon after a high-level review of the situation. Doctors attending the patients at Rohru said the symptoms appeared like plague, but it could not be said for certain as such symptoms were in some other diseases. They said that the condition of the five patients at Rohru and IGMC was improving.

Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, held a high-level meeting to review the situation. Health Minister J.P. Nadda and senior officers were present at the meeting. Mr Nadda rushed here from Jammu where he was campaigning for the BJP candidate for the byelection. Health Secretary Vineet Chaudhary cut short his leave after receiving reports of the disease.

The NICD team will reach Chandigarh in the Shatabdi Express in the morning and visit the PGI where some patients have been sent from Rohru. The NICD has also sent sufficient medicines for treating the patients in case the disease turns out to be plague.

Panic has gripped Rohru, Jubbal and Saraswatinagar following rumours of plague having spread in the area. Doctors have distributed preventive medicines in the surrounding areas.

Two teams of doctors of IGMC and the Health Department went to the affected village this morning along with the required medicines. The doctors have so far been claiming that the disease had symptoms of bilateral pneumonitis in which the patients were spitting blood with sputum.

The cause of panic following the death of a patient was that the Rohru area has a history of plague and was hit by the disease in 1982.

Reports said three persons showed symptoms of the disease when they returned to the village after hunting in the Keori forest. It was communicated to some other members of the family. The doctors have given medicines to all such persons who came in contact with the body of Randhir when it was taken for cremation.

CHANDIGARH (TNS): Meanwhile, seven persons, all from the same area in Himachal Pradesh, suffering from a serious pneumatic respiratory illness, have been admitted to the PGI. All of these had come in direct or indirect contact with Randhir, who had died of the disease. Now his wife, Sulochna (30), is battling for life and has been put on a ventilator since yesterday.

While the PGI has officially stated that it seemed to be a communicable pneumonic illness, doctors of the Department of Internal Medicine PGI, taking care of these patients, said it was a highly contagious disease which could be pneumonic plague.

All persons who had come in contact with these patients, including the doctors and nurses are being given doses of doxycycline as a prophylactic measure.

Although the Head of Department of Internal Medicine, PGI, has stated that the disease could be anything and only advanced investigations could reveal the exact cause of the disease, doctors in IGMC, Shimla, who are treating Ms Asha (57) with similar symptoms, have stated that all preliminary reports done at IGMC showed that it was case of pneumonic plague. “But a culture will be required to confirm it and by tomorrow morning we should have the report,’’ said Dr Hardayal Chauhan, Deputy Medical Superintendent, IGMC, Shimla.