VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy conducted a review meeting on the illness in Eluru with officials and medical teams on Wedne-sday. He directed them to conduct a through research and find out the causes of the illness and affirmed that the state government is offering good treatment to people.
During a video conference with the authorities, doctors and experts from the WHO, AIIMS, NIN, CCMB and the IICT, the Chief Minister said that corrective measures will be taken based on the final outcome of investigations and urged the experts to find the actual reason for the illness.
He told authorities to focus on whether the illness was due to water contamination or due to some other cause and asked to conduct a detailed investigation.
Officials informed that the presence of lead and nickel in the patient bodies might have caused the illness, which could have happened due to excessive use of pesticides. Officials said that the number of cases have been declining and the patients are recovering within 3-4 hours.
Meanwhile, experts from the WHO said that they are surveying the areas where people fell sick and are taking health details including the food they consumed. On the other hand, experts suspect that bleaching and chlorine used in sanitation programmes as part of Covid-19 prevention measures may also be the cause.
Doctors and experts from AIIMS, Delhi said that comprehensive tests are yet to be done, but the primary investigations revealed that lead and nickel appear to be high in the blood of those who were ill. As Indians do have nickel in their bodies, the presence of lead might have caused the illness. Also, it was found that there is a significant drop in the level of lead in the patients after 24 hours of becoming sick.
“The process of recycling batteries or due to the dumping of broken batteries, or when fired may also have led to the current situation. We will test drinking water and milk samples and come to a definite conclusion on the reasons as soon as possible,” they said.
Experts from AIIMS, Mangalagiri said that pesticides might have contaminated the organic chlorides, which is just a primary finding, where accurate conclusions on this are yet to come.
Expert team from NIN, Hyderabad said that they have examined the food, water, milk, urine and blood samples from the families of the sick and also taken samples of vegetables and essentials from the market. ‘We are conducting comprehensive tests, so far, there are no signs of danger. We shall submit a report on water, food, milk, urine and blood samples.’
Similarly, experts from IICT and CCMB are also investigating the cause of illness and are conducting various tests for accurate diagnosis.
Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney, Principal Secretary of Health Department Anil Kumar Singhal, Andhra Pradesh Medical and Infrastructure Development Corporation Chairman Dr K Chandrashekar Reddy and expert teams of AIIMS, NIN, IICT, WHO, CCMB and other officials were present.
