ANDHRA PRADESH: An identified illness has hospitalized more than 300 people in southern India, while one death has been reported according to local officials investigation the what could possibly be a new disease.
The first cases were detected on Saturday evening in the city of Eluru located in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with diagnosed patients suffering from a range of symptoms including seizures, loss of consciousness and nausea according to doctors.
The 45-year-old man who passed away reported similar symptoms as others and later died of an unrelated cardiac arrest according to the medical staff treating the patients.
However, these all these patients have tested negative for the novel coronavirus and a notification released by the local health department stated that the blood tests did not find any evidence of a viral infection like dengue or chikungunya, which are both caused by mosquito bites.
Authorities are now testing water samples from affected areas for any signs of contamination since the patients were getting their water supply from the same source.
Although several patients have been discharged and the rest are now stable, this is still an alarming situation and health officials in India are running all kinds of tests to determine more information about the unidentified illness.
This comes at a time when India continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, with the second-highest number of cases in the world especially in Andhra Pradesh, which remains the worst-affected state in the country.
Read more: Pakistan reports 89 coronavirus deaths in one day.
