KASHMIR-Mysterious disease outbreak in Kupwara village

8 Children Disabled In One Month

SHAHID RAFIQ

 

Tumina (Kupwara), Mar 13: At least eight children in this frontier village, about 32 kms from Kupwara, have been disabled in past one month due to outbreak of a mysterious disease. Residents of snowbound Tumina village nestled in Shamsbari mountain range are finding it hard to tackle the crisis as more and more children are getting disabled with each passing day. “Doctors are unable to diagnose the disease properly and treat the patients. People are making rounds of SKIMS and other medical institutions but to no avail,” parents of two patients told Greater Kashmir.
They said their children are unable to speak and it seems that their nervous system, liver, eyes and brain have got affected.
Similarly parents of three other children said, “Hands and feet of our children have started bending and their arms and legs have stopped working as a result they are unable to stand, work and eat.”
Parents said they have been running from pillar to post to get their children treated but doctors are unable to treat them. “We rushed these patients to SKIMS Soura. Doctors told us to get some tests done but technicians at SKIMS expressed their inability saying that there are no facilities in the hospital for these tests,” said Farooq Ahmad a parent, adding, “Our children have been badly hit by this mysterious disease. Authorities are not paying any heed towards our plight.”
Residents said that after repeated reminders and representations a team of doctors comprising Dr Nazir Ahmad and Dr Masrat Iqbal Nodal officer Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) Kupwara visited the village 10 days ago and took the water samples from the bore wells and blood samples of the affected children and their parents. “Neither any medicine was given nor was report of the samples returned,” they said.
Locals are up in arms against the officials of PHE department. “Our area has vast water resources like Chowkibal stream but the PHE department dug eight bore wells around 250 feet deep each at the whopping cost of Rs 2.50 crore. Without testing the water of bore wells they handed these to the residents of Tumina village with a population of 1500 souls .There could be several more cases of same disease as the entire village has been using the water of these bore wells since 2009.”
The Sarpanch of Tumina village appealed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to intervene and send a special team of doctors to the affected village and treat the children so that their lives are saved.
When contacted Director Health, Dr Saleem-ul-Rehman said, “The Directorate has not received any report from the concerned CMO, BMO or concerned IDSP unit. I have shot a letter to them. We are planning to send a team of doctors to the area to asses the ground situation.”  http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Mar/14/mysterious-disease-outbreak-in-kupwara-village-55.asp