M A I N   N E W S

Mysterious fever claims five more lives
Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 21
While doctors at IGMC Hospital await the final report of the NICD (National Institute of Communicable Disease), the mysterious fever claimed five more lives during the past 24 hours.

With this, the total death toll by the undiagnosed disease has reached 18. The patients who succumbed to the disease today were Bharu Devi of Arki, Neelam of Bilaspur, Thirku Devi of Hamirpur, Saroj of Rajgarh and Chandermani. Eighty-year-old Chandermani died after he was discharged from the hospital. Five more new patients were admitted to the hospital today.

The patients were being treated for “rickettsial” disease on the basis of the findings of the Central Research Institute, Kasauli, which analysed blood samples. However, conclusive evidence of the suspected “rickettsial” disease will be available only after the NICD completes serological and virological studies of the blood samples.

The team had also taken along bone-marrow samples of two patients showing symptoms of enteric fever.

Mysterious fever: need for data bank
Romesh Dutt

Solan, September 21
Do 12 deaths from an easily curable disease and that too in the IGMC, the state’s premier public health care institute, point to the possibility of serious shortcomings in its working. Is there not a need to create a data bank of such diseases.

Investigations made by this correspondent revealed that neither the IGMC nor the state’s Directorate of health was truly geared up to speedily cope up with emergencies like the one called mystery fever.

The IGMC had to deal with major epidemics at least three times in the recent past. The first was when plague struck the Tangu area of Chirgaon subdivision of Shimla district in 1983. The second was a repeat of plague scourge at Rohru, also in Shimla district, in 2002. The third was the current ‘mystery fever’, which seemed to have struck isolated pockets of Solan, Sirmour and Shimla district.

In all three cases, the IGMC tended to rely on outside help like from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases for diagnosis or for testing of blood samples, a time consuming process which resulted in avoidable fatalities.

Fortunately, for the sufferers of 2002 plague at Rohru, the Medical Superintendent of the Government Hospital there, Dr Ram Lal Sharma, was a veteran of the 1983 plague that took a heavy toll of lives at Tangu and Chirgaon. He did not need to wait for the report of the NICD before commencing treatment as he had the first-hand knowledge of the symptoms of plague. The mere chance posting of a physician having the first-hand experience of dealing with the dreaded disease undoubtedly saved many lives.

Almost the same happened in the case of the current ‘mysterious fever’ that had been ravaging parts of this and adjoining districts for the past almost three weeks. It was sheer coincidence that Dr M.P. Singhal, a local medical specialist, had treated the first reported cases of typhus in Himachal Pradesh way back in 1974, while he served in a state-run hospital at Mandi and that he thought it fit to publicise his experience through the media.

Like in the case of Dr Ram Lal Sharma’s proven experience in handling plague case helping save many precious lives, Dr Singhal’s thoughtfulness also helped many patients survive the comparatively innocuous disease inadvertently turned into a scourge.

If the IGMC were to wait for the report of the team of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases and the National Institute of Virology, which visited Shimla, Arki and Solan on Thursday and Friday, before deciding to put the mystery fever patients on to tetracycline on the lines suggested Dr Singhal, many more deaths would have occurred.

Even though typhus is easily treatable, it becomes fatal if neglected for long. Prolonged exposure to this fever quickly leads to fatal multiple organ failures.

As matters stand now, the reports of the NICD and the NIV teams were still awaited even as patients put on to tetracycline had started showing dramatic improvement.

Confirming this Dr R.P. Sahni, Medical Superintendent of the Zonal Hospital, here described the case of a woman from the Rajgarh area, who was admitted here a few days back. She had developed signs of severe renal complexities with her face and some other parts of the body getting badly swollen yesterday. She showed remarkable improvement soon after she was put on tetracycline and of course some antipyretic drugs.

But can the state always hope to be favoured with the ind of luck which materialised in the form of a Dr Sharma or Dr Singhal? Would it not be prudent to create a data bank of all rarily occurring diseases and also to make it available on the Health Department’s computer network, right now?

BILASPUR: The District is in the grip of mysterious fever and 72 persons have been admitted to various health institutions here. Three patients from this district, who had been referred to Snowdon Hospital, Shimla, died last week.

Reports said today that 40 patients had been admitted to the Regional Hospital here. Today 11 new patients were admitted, including six to the Regional Hospital, two to the Jhandutta Primary Health Centre, two to the Bharadi Health Centre and one to the Namhole Health Centre.

Chief Medical Officer B.C. Kapoor said three patients were discharged today from the Regional Hospital while 64 were under treatment in various health institutions here. He said some of them may not be suffering from the mysterious fever.