Jaipur: A four-year-old girl was the latest to die of an unidentified illness in Jhalra block of Salumber district Tuesday, which has so far claimed the lives of six children between the ages of two and seven since April 1. The health department suspects an outbreak of mosquito-borne viral encephalitis to be the cause of these deaths, though it is yet to be confirmed by laboratory tests.“We suspect the children died of viral encephalitis, though we are still awaiting laboratory confirmation,” the district’s chief medical and health officer, Mahendra Kumar Parmar, told TOI.News of the latest casualty from the suspected outbreak came from Semari tehsil.The health department has initiated outbreak control activities, under which 651 patients were treated on the spot in Udaipur division Tuesday. Similarly, anti-larval activities were carried out across 2,557 locations, while 1,796 blood slides were collected and 94 samples were gathered for testing.“In the Udaipur division, approximately 3,690 teams surveyed more than 52,000 houses and identified 275 symptomatic patients,” principal secretary (health) Gayatri Rathore said. “Of these, 25 patients have been referred to higher medical institutions for treatment,” she added.Meanwhile, teams from the health department and RNT Medical College, Udaipur, conducted surveys across affected villages Tuesday. Officials said 17 teams were deployed for door-to-door checks and 17 children with symptoms like fever and vomiting were identified.Officials said the children who died so far were between two and seven years old, and included two brothers, Laxman and Deepak Meena. The deaths were reported from the district’s Ghata and Lalpura villages.Parmar said the first death was reported on April 1 and the fifth on April 5. “We have sent 17 samples of children who show symptoms of viral encephalitis to RNT Medical College, Udaipur, today. The reports are awaited,” he said.For now, the department has instructed immediate referrals of children with severe conditions to the district hospital or hospitals attached to medical colleges. It has also directed anti-larva measures, source reduction and fogging to contain the spread of the disease.
