Death Toll Due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Maharashtra Rises to 4
56-year-old woman was suspected to have died of GBS in Pune.
Mumbai: Death toll due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Maharashtra increased to four with two more deaths reported on Friday. One of two deaths involved a 36-year-old Ola-Uber driver from Pimple Gurav, who was admitted to Yashwantrao Chavan Hospital on January 21 with suspected GBS. The other deceased was a 60-year-old man from Sinhagad Road.
According to officials, the patient, who worked as a driver, was admitted to the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH) in Pimpri Chinchwad. “An expert committee at YCMH conducted an investigation and concluded that the cause of the death was trauma to the respiratory system due to pneumonia, leading to severe difficulty in breathing,” the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation said in a release.
The 60-year-old man was diagnosed with both GBS and a rare condition called Bickerstaff brainstem encephalitis (BBE). Dr Sudhir Kothari, consulting neurologist at Poona Hospital and Research Centre, said it was a rare and unusual case. “The patient was from the Sinhagad Road area and a few weeks earlier had symptoms of loose motion. However, while he had weakness, the man was also drowsy and unable to pass urine. BBE is a rare disorder where the brainstem becomes inflamed,” he said.
On Wednesday, a 56-year-old woman was suspected to have died of GBS in Pune. A 40-year-old man from Solapur died of suspected nerve disorder on January 26. According to health officials, the suspected cases of the rare nerve disorder have risen to 130 in the state.
GBS is a rare neurological disorder and respiratory muscles in some patients also get impacted. Most of the cases in the state are from Pune and surrounding areas. These infections, including the latest case, are likely linked to contaminated water sources.