Indian state suspects first death from Guillain-Barre syndrome amid rising cases
By Sudipto Ganguly
MUMBAI (Reuters) - One person is believed to have died in India's Maharashtra state in an outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) - a neurological disease that causes numbness, weakness and pain - and the number of cases is rising, health officials said on Monday.
A total of 101 cases of GBS have so far been reported in the state, most of them in and around Pune city, which lies about 180 km (110 miles) from the state capital and India's financial hub Mumbai.
The state's public health department said in a statement that one person had died in the city of Solapur and 16 patients were currently on ventilators.
A rapid response team visited the affected areas, it said.
"Citizens should not panic – the state's health department is prepared to implement preventive and control measures," the statement said.
A federal health ministry spokesperson said the government has sent a seven-member team to Pune to assess the situation following the outbreak.
The condition, in which the body's immune system attacks nerves, can cause paralysis and even death.
Most symptoms occur within days or weeks of a viral or bacterial infection and typically last a few weeks, according to the World Health Organization.
Most people recover fully from even the most severe cases of GBS, although some continue to experience weakness, the global health agency says.
"The exact cause is not known behind the sudden rise in GBS cases," said Avinash Bhondwe, the former president of the Indian Medical Association, Maharashtra, adding that GBS was a post-infective auto-immune disease.
"Auto-immune diseases are not communicable, it cannot spread from one patient to another. But the causative infection usually spreads."
Drainage water gets mixed with potable water in some affected areas in Pune where water lines and drainage lines run side by side, leading to contamination and caused the spike in GBS cases among other possible reasons, Bhondwe said.
In their guidance, health authorities asked citizens to boil drinking water, among other measures.
(This story has been refiled to say, 'boil drinking water,' in paragraph 13)
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