Representative image of amoebic meningoencephalitis.
Credit: iStock Photo
Four persons infected with amoebic meningoencephalitis died in the last five days in Kerala triggering panic.
More alarming is that most of the victims of the infection in recent times did not have any known contact with contaminated water, which is considered to be the source of the brain eating amoeba, and many victims are elderly persons.
Health department sources still blame it on the contaminated waterbodies and environment as the primary reason.
The latest victim is Vijayan, 57, hailing from Koduman in the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram. He had suffered a leg fracture recently. During the course of treatment he was tested positive for amoebic meningoencephalitis and was under treatment at the Thiruvananthapuram medical college hospital.
This year so far 160 persons were tested positive for the infection and 37 among them died taking the death rate to 23 percent. The state health department continues to heave a sigh of relief that the state could keep the death rate low as it has been considered to be a near fatal infection with over 95 percent death rate.
A health department official told DH that despite repeated advisories by the health department, water bodies, including those widely depended by people for daily purposes, are remaining as mute witnesses of contamination caused by unscientific garbage disposal by the people.
"Over the last few years Kerala has been witnessing an increase in infectious diseases. Contaminated environment is the primary reason for this. The health department has been giving necessary alerts over these years. It was for the departments concerned to take effective actions to keep the water bodies and environment clean by taking stringent action against unscientific waste disposal. The health department is effectively treating the patients and trying to keep the death rate as low as possible," said the official who does not want to be quoted.
A doctor had recently made a social media post stating that garbage dumping was the root cause for the rise in rare and infectious diseases in the state.
Dr Harish Chirackal, head of the urology department of Thiruvananthapuram medical college hospital, who was in the news recently for openly lamenting over the lapses in the state health infrastructure, has made the social media post.
Dr Chirackal's post was in the backdrop of a doctor being hacked by the father of a nine year old girl in Kozhikode alleging lapses in treatment. Even as the state health authorities initially claimed that the girl died due to amoebic meningoencephalitis, the post mortem examination found that viral pneumonia was the cause of death.