Over 450 People Hospitalised In India Due To Sudden Outbreak Of Mysterious Disease

According to India Today, the centre of the outbreak is a city named Eluru located in the West Godavari district. Hundreds of people started flooding the local hospital on Saturday, 6 December.
 
263 people have since been discharged after receiving treatment at the hospital, while another 171 have been admitted as in-patients. On the other hand, 17 patients were referred to hospitals in Vijayawada and Guntur for further treatment.

West Godavari district surveillance officer Dolla Joshi Roy told CNN that COVID-19 is not the cause behind the symptoms.

"All patients have tested negative for COVID-19. The cause is still unknown but still we are doing all kinds of testing, including testing food and milk," he said.

Meanwhile, India Today cited a report presented by West Godavari district Collector R Mutyalaraju who stated that the precise cause of the disease could not be established yet as blood tests and computed tomography (CT) scans showed everything as normal.

Politician G V L Narasimha Rao was the first to suspect that poisonous organochlorine substances could be the cause of the disease, as reported by Times of India.

Organochlorine are chlorinated hydrocarbons used in agricultural pesticides and mosquito control.

The news outlet also quoted an unnamed source from the Medical and Health Department who said that the possibility of the disease being caused by the chemical is likely. However, authorities are still awaiting laboratory reports for confirmation.