5 students of a residential school in Odisha test positive for encephalitis

Five inmates of a residential school at Soro in Odisha's Balasore district have tested positive for encephalitis, doctors said.

Five of out of 29 sick girl students, who fell ill in 'Purubai Kanyashram', residential school have tested positive for encephalitis, Dr Sasanka Sekhar Choudhury of District Headquarters Hospital, Balasore told to PTI on Monday.

"Five ailing students have been detected with encephalitis positive from their blood sample test and are under treatment at Balasore district headquarters hospital," he said.

All other ailing students are symptomatic and under observation and admitted in Balasore hospital said the doctor, adding that on Monday morning six ailing students have been shifted to Balasore from Soro hospital.

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On Friday evening three students became ill at the Kanyashram complaining of severe headache, vomiting, loose motion and nausea and they were first taken to nearby Soro hospital and later shifted to Balasore hospital where one student of class 10 died, the official said.

The district administration on an emergency basis started action to tackle the situation and a team headed by CDMO rushed to the residential school and made necessary arrangements for the treatment of the ailing students.

On Sunday, director of public health Dr Niranjan Mishra along with officials visited the residential school and blood samples of all ailing students were sent to SCB Medical College.

The incident is taken seriously by the state government as as many as 103 children had died of Japanese encephalitis (JE) and acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) in September-November 2016 in Odisha’s Malkangiri district, an official said.

Japanese encephalitis is a viral brain infection caused by mosquito bites and belongs to the same genus as dengue, yellow fever and West Nile viruses.