900 suffering form fever, bird flu ruled out

Rourkela (Orissa), Mar 01: A mystery fever has afflicted about 900 people in a large slum on the outskirts of this steel city but health authorities have ruled out the possibility of bird flu.

Panic gripped the area, known as Panposh Basti which is home to 2000 families, as hundreds of people were hit by the fever over the last two days.

Sundargarh chief district medical officer Dr Premananda Pattnaik said the fever was not bird flu and health department personnel had already examined 241 blood samples which indicated that the fever was caused by an air-borne virus.

Some of the slides had indicated malaria, he said.

Forty one of the affected people had been admitted to the Rourkela government hospital since yesterday. The rest were treated as outdoor patients.

A team of physicians from the VSS medical college hospital from Burla would be at Panposh to take stock of the situation.

Pattnaik said a team of doctors and para-medical personnel from the district headquarter hospital at Sundargarh were already working at the Basti and making a door-to-door surveillance.

In Bhubaneswar, state health secretary R N Senapati said the government was looking into the situation and doctors' teams were being sent to find out the reason behind the outbreak of the fever.