NAGPUR, Nov 5: Hudkeshwar Budruk village is plagued by a ``mystery disease'' which claimed two more victims and struck down four more people with similar symptoms in the adjoining Pipla village. The people from both villages are reeling in panic as utter confusion reigns among the officials of the health department over the exact nature of the disease.

Hudkeshwar is a stricken village; one of the two centres of activity is the Primary School which has doubled up as hospital and an administrative office. Wails emerge from a house a little away from the school where the last rites of 60-year-old Gulabrao Chaudhary, the latest victim, is being observed. The family members of Hirabai Mhaske, 55, the other victim of the scourge, have taken away the body to village Alasur near Wadi.

A deathly silence prevails in the place where half the villagers have shifted to their relatives' to safer places. Kamalabai Futane, who has opted to stay back, has her husband and eldest son racked by the symptoms of the disease - low fever and twitching sensation in limbs. Three of her four children have been sent to her kin in the city. ``I have been cooking and feeding the cattle with the food the next day. No one feels like eating, there is this feeling of doom over all of us,'' says Kamalabai Futane.

The youth, meanwhile, vent their angry words on the system. Kishore Raut, a Janata Dal activist, feels that the administration is not only hapless but also has been feeding wrong information to the villagers. He urged the district administration to gauge the exact situation there.

Meanwhile, senior health officials, including Dr M V Pandit, deputy director of health, Nagpur division, Dr M S Pimpalgaonkar, assistant director of health (malaria), Department of Malaria and Filaria, Government of Maharashtra visited the village. Dr Pimpalgaonkar told The Indian Express that as no particular treatment is available for viral diseases, the patients are being given symptomatic and supportive treatment. Of the two patients, who died Monday night at GMC, Leelabai was reported to have died of viral hepatitis, while the cause of Gulabrao's death has been given as viral gastroenteritis. While the doctors have confirmed viral infection, the key to the solution still lies with the samples of blood and mosquitoes being tested at National Virological Institute, Pune.

The situation has complicated further with the villagers alleging that the source of the disease is the nullah surrounding the village, which happens to be the Nagpur municipal drain. Meanwhile, five villagers of neighbouring Pipla who developed symptoms similar to that of the `mystery-disease', were taken to the Nagarjun Medical Trust run by the Ogawa Society , Hudkeshwar.

At the same time, authorities inform that malaria prevention measures, including spraying of delta methyrene to counter aedes mosquitoes, were completed in Hudekshwar Budruk.

In the city, a meeting was convened at the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), attended by senior health officials and eminent private medical practitioners. Speaking at the meeting the Mayor appealed to the citizens not to panic and ignore the rumours of dengue epidemic. He assured adequate preventive measures.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.