Srinagar: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has deployed a five member expert team to district Udhampur for investigating child deaths at Ramnagar block due to some mysterious disease.
Dr Anila Koul, an Epidemiologist at the Directorate of Health Services Jammu, told Kashmir Reader that the central team comprising paediatricians, microbiologists and epidemiologists have arrived in the affected area to assist local doctors find the actual cause of child deaths over past fortnight.
“The team have collected the blood, urine and water samples from many villages of Ramnagar block to probe possible reasons of these sudden deaths. They will submit a report after the conclusion of the investigation,” she said.
Dr Koul said the local epidemiologists and doctors could not find the definite cause of child deaths probably because those were caused by some new organism.
“The new organism might have spread in the area through polluted water sources or infected blood which leads to the mysterious infection. However, these are just hypothesis because we couldn’t find any diagnosis so far,” she said.
The mysterious disease has lead to at least 10 child deaths while six others were taken ill seriously. The deaths were reported from different villages of Ramnagar block since January 8 after the children as younger as 11 months complained of fever, vomiting and low passage of urine in a quick succession.
Chief Medical Officer Udhampur, Dr K C Dogra said the deaths have occurred after the children came with unusual symptoms from different places and at different times so it’s difficult for us to conclude the cause so quickly.
“Lets wait for the expert report then only we can say with authority,” he said.
Dr Dogra denied the allegations that the deaths occurred due to negligence.
“We have followed proper procedure while handling the cases,” he said.

Manzoor ul-Hassan