Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh
“Somvaar ko mar gayi wo” (She died on Monday)
Sitting on the chaukhat (threshold) of her daughter’s house in Jhalkari Nagar, 60-year-old Girja Devi keeps mumbling to herself, and sometimes to passersby on her street. Manya, her granddaughter, was only five years old. A resident of Firozabad in western Uttar Pradesh, Manya died four days ago on August 30.
“We didn’t even get time to respond properly to her illness. My Manya died two days after she had a fever and stomach ache. Somvaar ko mar gayi wo,” her grief-stricken nani (maternal grandmother) told Gaon Connection.
After a brief pause to wipe her eyes, the grandmother added: “Manya’s condition worsened very quickly. We gave her some medicine but the fever didn’t come down. We got to know about a medical camp nearby and got more medicines. Ek hi khuraak kha paayi wo aur phir turant thandi pad gayi. Cheekhne lagi ki bahut garmi lag rahi hai. Lekin upar se ikdum thandi.” (We gave her one dose of the medicine and she suddenly went cold and started screaming that she was feeling very hot. But her body was cold to the touch.)
Firozabad has become the epicentre of a mystery fever that is spreading fast. Till yesterday, September 2, at least 50 people had died in the district, most of them children.
The official data on the outbreak in Firozabad district shows that there are a total of 2,533 active cases, and 3,719 having been treated so far. Of the total 50 deaths so far, five were recorded on September 2.
The district magistrate (DM) of Firozabad Chandra Vijay Singh, told the press today (September 3) that at present, 400 patients are admitted at the district hospital and there has been a sudden drop of platelets in 38 patients today.
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“I have also found stagnant water in the critical areas during my inspection. We will take necessary action against the officials responsible for these things,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, reports of the mystery fever and related deaths are also pouring in from the neighbouring districts of Mathura, Agra and Etah. As per reports (not independently verified by Gaon Connection), at least 64 people have died in the affected districts. This ‘fever’ hits children, and they form the majority of the victims. In Mathura, it is claimed that 14 people, 12 of them children, died due to the mystery fever.
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Hospitals abuzz with chaos — wailing children, distressed parents
As the number of children reporting the mystery fever soars in Firozabad, the district hospital (State Autonomous District Hospital, Firozabad) is packed with hapless parents holding their wailing children and waiting to get them admitted.
Screams of toddlers echo the hospital corridors where blood tests are being conducted to screen children for dengue or any other vector-borne diseases.
Outside, a father rushed inside the hospital with a sick child hanging listless from his shoulder. Every minute counts in this fight against the mystery fever whose symptoms include high fever, stomach ache, dysentery, diarrhoea, and sudden drop in blood platelet levels.
There are groups of parents and grandparents, along with their sick children, waiting outside the hospital for official modalities to be done.
Fifty-five-year-old Mira Devi, grandmother of four ill kids, waited outside the hospital while the sick children vomited, waiting to be admitted.
“I don’t have much money with me. The doctors have collected the blood samples of my children. The reports are yet to arrive. They all have fever and stomach pain, I pray to god that he spares the lives of these innocent children,” the worried grandmother told Gaon Connection.
Stomach ache is what the five-year-old Manya, who died on August 30, had been complaining about. “Manya was complaining of severe stomach pain. The doctors conducted some tests and administered a few medicines but her stomach swelled a lot and she was in intense pain,” grandmother Girja Devi told Gaon Connection. They had taken Manya to a private hospital.
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“We begged the doctor to do something quickly as the child was writhing in pain. The doctor told us to take her to Agra if we wanted things to be done quickly. My Manya died soon after,” she added.
Cleanliness drive and awareness programmes
According to the local residents of Firozabad, the city has unhygienic conditions which get worse during the monsoon season. There are areas where waste is openly dumped or mosquitoes breed in stagnant water.
Post the outbreak of the mystery fever, the district administration has become active and fogging is being carried out to control mosquito spread. Street shows and magic shows are being performed in affected mohallas to make people aware about symptoms of the disease and practice using mosquito bednets while sleeping.
As per the official communication, nine blocks and one nagar nigam in Firozabad are affected by the recent outbreak.
“We have emphasised that ORS (oral rehydration syrup) and paracetamol are crucial in handling such patients and drugs like ibuprofen have to be strictly avoided,” Firozabad’s district magistrate Singh said.
In an official statement on September 1, Sangeeta Aneja, Principal of the Government Medical College Firozabad, said: “Most of the patients who are being admitted in this hospital are manifesting symptoms like diarrhoea, dysentery, viral fever, body pain, and most of them are found to be suffering from dengue. At present there are 240 children admitted in this hospital and three of them have died in the past one week.”
When asked about the probable reasons behind the outbreak, Aneja said, “It has rained significantly in the past few days and water is collected at isolated places and this has become the perfect breeding ground for dengue-causing mosquitoes”.
However, there is no final word on what is killing the children in Firozabad as teams of doctors are still trying to ascertain the cause.
A central team from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is investigating the outbreak and the state government has also stepped up surveillance for dengue and sent medical teams to aid health workers in Firozabad. Yesterday, on September 2, the Union health ministry also sent a team from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to Firozabad to investigate the matter. The first case of the mystery fever was reported on August 18.
Yesterday, September 2, the newly appointed chief medical officer (CMO) of Firozabad had said that the disease could also be some infection like scrub typhus or leptospirosis which will only be revealed after ICMR completes its investigation.
Written and edited by Pratyaksh Srivastava
