Acute malnutrition fuels viral encephalitis

A panicked family in Shimultali cluster village in Companiganj upazila.Photo: STAR

Physicians have identified the 'mysterious' disease claiming 22 lives in nine days as viral encephalitis while malnutrition has been found to have high correlation with the incidence of attack.
Almost all the patients are malnourished and their immune system is too poor, acting Director General of Health Directorate, Professor Khondker Shefyetullah, said after visiting the villages on Sunday.
With about 70 still suffering from the dreaded disease, panic and anxiety has gripped the minds of the villagers of Companiganj and Gowainghat, two bordering upazilas of Sylhet.
Health officials are running medical teams at the villages while several senior physicians are overseeing the patients under treatment at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital.
High officials in the health directorate for the first time on Sunday said the disease is 'viral encephalitis'.
"However, we are yet to ascertain the very specific type of virus," the acting DG of health directorate said.
During a visit to Shimultala, Dhalarpar and Buridohor villages, this correspondent found people still silent with the grief of losing children just in a week.
"Jom [death] has taken two of my five children named Tania and Lucky. What will happen to the others? said a wailing Rasheda Khatun, 55, of Shimultala, a cluster village in Companiganj.
Her husband, stone quarry labourer Modhu Miah, is now without any work as extraction of stones has remained suspended for reasons not clear to him.
"The killer disease has added to our sorrow when we are passing time amid misery and distress," Kajol Miah, 30, said.
Ishaque Ali of the same village said, almost all the affected children had common symptoms -- it starts with vomiting and convulsion and in many cases fever and diarrhoeal complexities worsen the patient's condition.
"Nearly 90 per cent of our male people are day labourers at stone quarries. But we are jobless for weeks, as the authorities stopped stone collection from there," said Idris Miah.
"We are in a great problem as there is no substitute job in this season," he added.
All the inhabitants at the village are half-fed, said 60-year-old Kafiluddin.
Set up in a low land, the cluster village gets flooded almost every year. This year, floods hit the village thrice.
"No NGOs came to us with their programme. We want work, not relief," said Hajera, a mother of three children.
Proper treatment of the affected ones has been arranged and three separate and isolated corners for the children, female and male patients have been set up at Osmani Medical College Hospital, Prof Khondker said.
Medical teams are serving at the villages in Gowainghat and Companiganj upazilas and ambulances are kept ready for carrying the patients to the medical college hospital, Civil Surgeon of Sylhet Dr AZ Mahbub told The Daily Star yesterday evening.
Almost all the patients are suffering from vomiting and convulsion in addition to diarrhoeal complexities while the poor families are victims of acute malnutrition, he added.
Sylhet Divisional Commissioner Aziz Hasan and Deputy Commissioner Harun Ur Rashid Khan Sunday evening visited Shimultala village in Companiganj and gave Tk 1,000 to each of the 97 families living there. Several children of the village died of the disease during the last few days.