# 4779
Three days ago Shiloh on FluTrackers posted an article from The Hindustan Times on a deadly outbreak of a `mystery disease’ in the northeastern Indian state of Tripura that had reportedly claimed the lives of 20 children.
Unknown diseases kill 20 kids in Tripura
Indo-Asian News Service
Agartala, June 25, 2010
Last Updated: 16:15 IST(25/6/2010)
At least 20 children have died in the past 10 days following the outbreak of various unknown viral and tropical diseases in a remote tribal-dominated village in Tripura, officials in Agartala said on Friday.
"The children mostly died at their homes in remote Kangrai tribal village along the Tripura-Mizoram border in northern Tripura," doctors and officials who visited the affected areas told reporters at divisional headquarters Kanchanpur.
Many other children and elders also fell ill. Some were admitted to the sub-divisional hospital.
Reports of `mystery fevers’ and illness are common out of India and surrounding countries as many villages are remote, and without adequate medical care.
Often, assuming we do get a diagnosis, these outbreaks are attributed to Japanese Encephalitis, Malaria or some other vector borne disease that is endemic in the region. Sometimes food poisoning or a tainted water source is blamed.
Occasionally, in this part of the world, outbreaks of something more exotic occur, such as the Nipah virus. And while no human cases have been recorded in India as yet, this is also an area that has seen H5N1 in poultry.
So naturally, the newshounds are paying attention to reports of any `mystery disease’ out of that region.
Over the last 72 hours Alert, Treyfish, Ironorehopper, and RoRo have all added to this ongoing thread on Flutrackers, with more than a dozen additional reports from various news outlets.
The reports are somewhat confused and conflicting, with various estimates of deaths ranging from 24 to nearly 100. The symptoms described are too vague to allow much speculation as to the cause.
ProMed Mail was notified, and they’ve printed several of these reports and issued an RFI (Request for Information) as well. I’ve excerpted their comment below.
UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESS - INDIA: (TRIPURA), REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
***********************************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org>
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org><SNIP>
The description of the symptoms of the illness is not sufficiently precise to indicate whether this outbreak has been caused by a novel pathogen such as Nipah virus or a more familiar agent such as avian (H5N1) or pandemic (H1N1) influenza virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, or malaria which may be prevalent in the area, or a combination of agents. ProMED-mail would welcome any additional information from the region.
Regardless of what ends up being the cause of this outbreak, this is illustrative of the terrific work being done by the volunteer newshounds on the flu forums.
They spend countless hours searching hundreds of newsfeeds every day, looking for any hint of an unusual outbreak of a disease in humans or animals. And they do this not only in English, but in dozens of other languages as well.
I’ve written often of my gratitude to these tireless troops. I literally couldn’t do half what I do without their efforts.
For more on how they go about their formidable task, you might wish to read Newshounds: They Cover The Pandemic Front.
When we get more information, I’ll try to update it here. But to follow in real time, you may wish to check on this FluTrackers thread.
