Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir's (J&K) Rajouri district have sealed all pesticide and insecticide shops as part of the preventive measures taken after 17 'mysterious deaths' took place in Budhal village, officials said on Thursday.
Part of an ongoing probe and preventive legal steps after 17 people lost their lives in the past nine weeks due to the 'unknown illness' in Budhal village, the authorities on Wednesday carried out surprise checks on all insecticide, pesticide, and fertiliser stockpiles in the district and began shutting them down.
Officials said as many as 11 patients who were admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital (GMCH) after falling ill in Budhal village have fully recovered and were discharged on Tuesday.
In a major late evening action taken by authorities, surprise inspections of all insecticide, pesticide, and fertiliser stores were initiated followed by the closure of all the stores until further orders.
Joint teams from the department of agriculture, department of food and drugs control organisation assisted by police were headed by an executive magistrate conducting simultaneous surprise inspections at all these outlets located all over the district.
There are said to be around 250 such outlets.
The action comes in the wake of a team of doctors visiting Rajouri. The three-day visit of this team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi concluded its visit.
They interviewed the patients from Badhal village and collected various samples as part of their investigation into the recent deaths in the area.
The five-member team of experts from Delhi AIIMS, including specialists in toxicology, conducted interviews and recorded clinical histories from the 11 patients currently undergoing treatment during their visit.
Dr A.S. Bhatia, principal of GMCH, Rajouri told IANS that all patients, who had reported to the hospital with symptoms of the mysterious illness, were treated with atropine and all have survived.
Dr Bhatia said that atropine is an antidote for organophosphorus group of poisons and it is safe to believe that the 17 deaths had occurred due to organophosphorus poisoning.
Asked why the doctors in J&K missed detecting the killer poison, Dr Bhatia said that the typical symptom of organophosphorus poisoning is that the victims report with dilated eye pupils, but those admitted to hospital with high fever, vomiting, excessive sweating, and unconsciousness had constricted eye pupils.
“Why patients with organophosphorus poisoning exhibited constricted eye pupils in these cases is being investigated”, Dr Bhatia said.
The good news is that all 11 patients who report to the hospitals with symptoms of the mysterious diseases are now getting atropine and none have died and all have been sent back home recovering," he summed up.
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