Bengal reports another Guillain-Barre fatality, official toll rises to two

Kolkata: West Bengal on Saturday reported a death reportedly caused by the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, the second fatality in the state since January.

The victim has been identified as Khairul Sheikh, 22, a resident of the Suti area in the state’s Murshidabad district. He is a former para-medical student of state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata, which was in the news because of the ghastly rape and murder of a woman junior doctor attached to it within the hospital premises in August last year.

Sheikh had recently gone to Bihar’s Purnea in connection with a job at a private hospital there. He had fallen sick there, following which he came back to his ancestral home at Suti.

As his condition started deteriorating with the lower portion of his body starting to show paralytic symptoms, he was shifted to Kolkata earlier this month and was admitted at R.G. Kar.

Last month, the West Bengal Health Department issued a statement claiming that the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system, is nothing new in the state or the country and there had been sporadic reports of people getting affected by it in the past too.

The death of a minor student on January 28 was claimed to be due to the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, there was no official confirmation in the matter from either the state Health Department or from the authorities of the hospital where he was admitted.

The deceased was a resident of Jagatdal in North 24 Parganas district and his age was 10 years.

Information of a similar death of another 17-year-old, a resident of Amdanga in North 24 Parganas district, reportedly after being affected by the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, surfaced then too.

However, the authorities of the hospital, instead of directly stating that the Guillain-Barre Syndrome was the reason for the death claimed that the death was due to septic shock and myocarditis, with the possibility of the disease being the underlying condition.

Recently, over 100 cases of people being affected by the Guillain-Barre Syndrome were reported from Maharashtra, especially from Pune.

As per the figures available, of the 110 reported cases in Maharashtra, 88 were from Pune, 15 were from Pimpri, and the remaining seven were from other districts. Out of the total reported cases, as many as 73 were men and the rest were women.

IANS