The critical situation in Rajouri District where allegedly a mysterious disease is taking toll since December last year is something which has put a big question mark on the Health Department of J&K as ten lives have been lost to this ‘unexplained’ disease and the concerned quarters in the aforementioned department are still clueless as claimed by the media reports.
As the unknown disease continued to haunt the health department officials, two more children of a family perished while four other siblings of the same family were hospitalized after they fell seriously ill due to the same unexplained disease so far at Larkoti hamlet in Badhaal village of Budhal tehsil in Kotranka sub-division of Rajouri district where reportedly eight members of two different families had lost their lives due to a mysterious disease in December last year.
Two siblings who died a day before were a girl and her brother making things perplexing for the authorities as mystery shrouds these deaths in the region.
It is pertinent to mention that except claiming that these deaths have been caused due to some viral infection, the Health department is clueless about the nature and nomenclature of the merciless contagion taking its toll in the region.
It is noteworthy that various teams of experts from Pune’s National Institute of Virology, PGI Chandigarh, AIIMS Delhi and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Delhi, had also visited the village to assist in the investigations but till date nothing has come to fore making it a mystifying case where experts of the field are also struggling to pinpoint the ailment causing large scale fatalities.
It is intriguing that the Health Department has failed to act appropriately in this matter as despite the passing of a month things are still not clear and the people are losing lives.
Looking at the gravity of the issue, it is necessary that the LG Manoj Sinha and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah should intervene and take necessary steps to find the exact nature of the disease and the reasons behind the deaths as sitting over the matter is not at all advisable because the problem can take a dangerous turn in the worst case therefore international experts are required to be roped if the national level teams have failed to do the job as the present handling of the matter seems to be casual and complacent.
