Woman dies of suspected Guillain-Barre syndrome in Maharashtra; 16 new cases recorded

Pune: A woman is suspected to have died of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in Maharashtra on Wednesday, while 16 new cases of the rare nerve disorder were reported in the state, health officials said.

On Sunday, a 40-year-old man from Solapur died of suspected GBS.

"A 56-year-old woman from Pune with co-morbidities is suspected to have succumbed to GBS at the state-run Sassoon General Hospital," a health department official said.

The health department said in a release, "127 suspected patients of GBS have been found so far, besides one more patient suspected to have succumbed to the disease. Nine of them are from outside Pune district." Sixteen new GBS cases were reported on Wednesday, it said.

Seventy-two case have been diagnosed as confirmed GBS cases and 20 patients are currently on ventilators, it said.

So far, 121 stool samples have been sent to the city-based National Institute of Virology (NIV), and all of them were tested for 'enteric virus panel'. Twenty-one samples tested positive for Norovirus while five stool samples tested positive for Campylobacter, the release said.

A total of 200 blood samples have been sent to the NIV. All samples have tested negative for Zika, dengue, chikungunya.

"A total of 144 water samples from different parts of the city have been sent for chemical and biological analysis to the Public Health Laboratory, and samples from eight water sources found contaminated," it said.

GBS is a rare condition that causes sudden numbness and muscle weakness, with symptoms including severe weakness in the limbs, loose motions, etc.

Bacterial and viral infections generally lead to GBS as they weaken the immunity of patients, and in the present case, the disease is suspected to have been triggered by contaminated water, according to doctors.