The Vadodara District Health Department on Friday confirmed that the district has reported its first and Gujarat’s second confirmed case of the Chandipura Viral Encephalitis (CHPV) in a six-year-old boy from Savli who had died on July 1 in hospital.
The six-year-old from Manipura village in Savli had been brought to SSG hospital in the early hours of July 1 with complaints of high grade fever, convulsions and unconsciousness. Within ten hours of his admission, he died in hospital. Since this day, four other deaths of suspected CHPV have been reported by SSG hospital. These deaths are of a six-year-old boy from Panchmahal district who died on July 14, a three-year-old boy from Dahod district who died on July 16 and two four-year-old girls from Panchmahal district who died on July 17.
SSG Medical Superintendent Dr Ranjan Aiyer told The Indian Express“We had sent the sample of the boy from Savli to the NIV on July 2 as part of our regular practice after clinically diagnosing the case as that of acute encephalitis. The characteristic of acute viral encephalitis and CHPV is that it rapidly progresses by affecting the neurological system, causing brain edema, which keeps increasing to a point where the child needs a ventilator.”
He said that the hospital has sent samples of all the deceased patients to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune as per usual practice.
According to data from the SSG hospital in Vadodara, as of Friday afternoon, a total of 11 suspected cases of CHPV are currently under treatment at the hospital. Four fresh admissions of suspected cases, with the patients currently in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
This includes a 4-year-old from Gotri in Vadodara, a seven-year-old from Mahisagar district, an 11-month-old boy from Panchmahal district and a one-year-old from Morwa Hadaf in Panchmahal district. A four-year-old girl from Panchmahal district, who was admitted on July 11 on suspicion of the virus, also continues to be in the PICU.
Vadodara Chief District Health Officer (CDHO) Minaxi Chauhan, on Friday, confirmed that the health teams have begun a drive in the Manipura village of Savli from where the deceased six-year-old boy had lived. Chauhan told The Indian Express, “I am visiting the village today. The health teams had arrived in the village in the late evening on Thursday and we have randomly collected samples of children in the village and also begun a health survey in the neighbourhood of the boy. We only learnt about the case now as the NIV has reported the case as a positive CHPV case.”
SSG has also discharged two other suspected CHPV cases in Gujarat, whose samples tested negative at NIV Pune.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 19-07-2024 at 13:38 IST
