Tragedy strikes Garo Hills village, five children dies

The outbreak of the disease often transmitted by infected food and drink, reportedly began on October 24 at Renchagre village situated in the remote part of Anogre when a child under two years died in less than 12 hours after contracting the disease.

Within a week five children had died, all under the age of five and one among them was just two month old baby.

Dr Ivonne Sangma, DCMO who was part of the medical team that visited the village informed, "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."

Because of the poor road condition it took more than an hour for the medical team to reach the village from Anogre by four wheelers.

Making matters worse, superstition and belief in traditional medicine (quacks) are common in the village. When a medical team of doctors from the Asanang Primary Health Center, the district surveillance unit, and the Seventh Day Adventist CMC doctors arrived in the village, they were surprised to discover that the local medicine man had more authority than anyone else.

The medicine man (quack) claimed the cause of the disease outbreak was "Dikge", a traditional tuberous plant. Believing his words the villagers started uprooting and destroying plants in and around the village.

And the medical teams were restricted from entering the village unless they underwent a kind of "cleansing".

Dr Sangma said ,"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."

The vaccination campaign in the village has been dismal because only 12 out of the 93 children, under 15 years of age who were entitled to take the vaccine to protect against Japanese Encephalitis have taken the jab this year.

Despite the difficulties in persuading villagers to stick to the peoper medical guidance. Some signs of improvement could be seen by the doctors among some villagers, specially those who were hit by the outbreak when the medical team returned to the village on Monday.

Dr Sangma recalled, "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."