TURA: Tragedy struck a remote village in the Anogre region of West Garo Hills where five children, some as young as a few months, died from a sudden bout of blood dysentery prompting authorities to rush medical teams to the village, this week.
The outbreak of the disease, often spread through contaminated food or water, reportedly began at Renchagre village, located in a remote part of Anogre, on October 24 when a child under two years died in less than 12 hours after contracting the disease.
Within a week, as many as five children, all under the age of five, had passed away. The youngest victim was just two months old.
“We came to know about the deaths and immediately rushed our health teams to the village on October 31. The children had experienced vomiting and blood dysentery and were severely dehydrated which led to the deaths. We have collected stool samples of the patients and sent them for testing,” informed Dr Ivonne Sangma, DCMO, who was part of the medical team that visited the village.
The road condition was so poor that it took over an hour for the medical teams on four wheelers to reach the village from Anogre.
To make matters worse, superstition and belief in local medicine men (quacks) was widespread in the village. When a medical team consisting of doctors from the district surveillance unit, the Asanang Primary Health Centre and the Seventh Day Adventist CMC doctors arrived at the village, they were shocked to find the local “medicine” man had more authority than anyone else.
Believing the claims of the medicine man that the cause of the disease outbreak was because of the presence of a traditional tuberous plant called “Dikge” the villagers kept themselves busy uprooting and destroying plants in and around the village.
Even the medical teams were barred from entering the village unless they underwent a kind of “cleansing”.
“We could witness widespread superstition amongst the villagers. There were two adults and three other children also suffering from dysentery but they refused to be brought to the hospital despite attempts at convincing them. So we had to leave behind antibiotics, oral rehydration powders for them and advised them on proper hand washing and hygiene,” narrated Dr Sangma.
It is worth mentioning that the vaccination programme in the village has been dismal. Out of the 93 children, under 15 years of age, who were entitled to take the vaccine to protect against Japanese Encephalitis, only 12 took the jab, this year.
Despite the difficulties in convincing villagers to adhere to proper medical guidelines, some semblance of change could be witnessed amongst some of the villagers, particularly those who were struck down by the outbreak, when the medical teams returned to the village on Monday.
“The children who had followed the medical advice and taken the necessary ORS and antibiotics had been nursed back to health when we landed at the village, yesterday,” recalled Dr Sangma.