In the last 45 days, the number of mysterious deaths have risen to 16. According to reports 60-year-old woman Jatti Begum died in GMC Associated Hospital Rajouri on Friday. She was wife of 65-year-old Muhammad Yousuf who also died a few days ago.
Twelve children and four adults have died. First few deaths occurred on December 5, 2024 when five members of a family including the head of the family died due to the mysterious disease. The family of 7 had fallen ill after a community meal in the village.
Five days later on December 12, 2024, three children died of the same disease. On January 12 a family of 10 fell ill after consuming another community meal. Eight more have died since then.
All deaths are of three families who are interlinked and related to each other. The village is in a state of panic and people are very scared of their health.
The village has 5700 population. Thousands of samples have been taken by different agencies from the village. Government has said all samples have tested negative for any viral or bacteriological etiology.
"The tests were conducted on different samples in some of the most reputed labs in the country. These include the National Institute of Virology Pune, the National Centre for Disease Control New Delhi, the National Institute of Toxicology and Research Lucknow, the Defence Research Development Establishment Gwalior, the Microbiology Department of PGIMER Chandigarh besides the ICMR-Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory, GMC Jammu,” an official spokesman said.
A team of state rapid response experts including epidemiologists, microbiologists, and others from DHS Jammu, GMC Jammu, and Rajouri visited the area to conduct detailed screening and collect contact tracing samples. Experts from NCDC, NIV Pune, and PGI Chandigarh also visited the area to help in containment of the situation.
An official spokesman said clinical reports, lab investigations and environmental samples have ruled out communicable disease.
“The toxicological analysis conducted by CSIR-IITR has detected toxins in multiple biological specimens,” he said.
Since health authorities have not found any bacterial, viral infection or disease in the deaths so far, the authorities have asked police to investigate the deaths. Police have constituted an 11-member SIT to investigate the deaths.
