Even as the state is battling to contain the mysterious viral fever that has claimed the lives of more than 200 children, experts have warned that there might be another attack of the epidemic after the monsoon as there would be vector breeding again. Expressing concern over the delay in establishing the nature and cause of the mystery fever, Dr P M Bhargava, eminent scientist and president of MARCH (Medically Aware and Responsible Citizens of Hyderabad), said the government and the medical profession must be fully prepared to check the outbreak of new diseases. He was speaking at the 94th monthly meeting of MARCH.

Referring to SARS and the mystery fever sweeping Andhra Pradesh, Dr Bhargava said new diseases that could not be diagnosed and cured by the usual drugs would continue to emerge. He said China could contain SARS and was able to check it from spreading. Regretting that there had been unnecessary delay in investigating the cause of the mystery fever in the state, Dr Bhargava said the government should have used the existing facilities at CCMB for the isolation of the virus. He said CCMB would have isolated the virus within 24 hours.

He said both the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi, and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, were wasting time when more and more children were falling victim to the disease. He also criticised the two institutions for rushing to the press without any concrete evidence to prove the cause of the disease.
Dr Bhargava said there were two organisations in the US equipped to identify new diseases. India needed an Institute totally committed to infectious diseases and this should be run by professional and scientific organisations and not by the government alone, he said.

Dr Raj Kumar, Project Manager, PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), said the disease could be Japanese Encephalitis or a variation of the existing virus. He ruled out West Nile Virus or Reye’s Virus as suggested by some experts. He said such unsubstantiated reports created panic among the people.
Dr Raj Kumar suggested a wider discussion by experts, officials and NGOs on the subject to chalk out future plan of action. He told Pharmabiz that a meeting will be organised jointly by PATH and MARCH sometime in August. He also disclosed that a team of experts from the Centre for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA, will be visiting Hyderabad to study the cause of the viral fever. The Seattle-based Bill Gates Foundation will be coordinating the visit of the experts as desired by the state government.

Meanwhile, Jana Vignana Vedika, a social organisation, had claimed that the state government sat on a report that warned four months ago that any outbreak of disease during the monsoon would result in high mortality rates, especially among children in the districts where the people had been weakened by the severe drought. The report pointed out that the drought had left the children malnourished in Mehboobnagar, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts, making them more susceptible to any disease. The report also said that unless the state government started a major cleanliness drive, an epidemic was bound to break out in the districts. The report was submitted to Health Minister Kodela Sivaprasada Rao on March 31, though the minister had denied ever having received such a report.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, the Vedika said it had sent a team comprising doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of PG Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry, and Osmania General Hospital, Hyderabad, to villages in the four districts. “We did a thorough study in these districts. The drought sapped the energy from grown-ups and children alike. Wherever we went we saw malnourished children and polluted surroundings. Based on these, we mentioned in the report that a major epidemic was in the making,” T Sundara Raman, Professor, AIIMS, who was a member of the team said.

P Sasidhar, a paediatrician from Pondicherry, underscored the need for a comprehensive public health system. We lost so many lives to this epidemic. Now we have to be prepared for an epidemic again in September, when the retreating monsoon would bring more diseases. Their study also corroborates MARCH’s warning on the possibility of another spell of the epidemic after the retreat of the monsoon.