58 kids suffer from acute paralysis

Jamshedpur, Dec. 26: This year, 58 children in the East Singhbhum district were paralysed due to unknown reasons.

After the report came up, it was feared that the children were victims of polio.

The East Singhbhum district administration conducted an investigation and found out that the victims were affected with acute flaccid paralysis.

District civil surgeon officials said they have carried out stool tests of 53 children so far and have not found any polio virus. All the cases of acute flaccid paralysis while the final reports of the remaining five children are awaited.

Acute flaccid paralysis is of acute nature from the onset and the affected parts turn limp. The surveillance focuses on children below 15 years of age as the disease has been found among them only.

According to the guidelines of World Health Organisation, the district health department is required to conduct a surveillance in the region to ensure that there is no outbreak of polio.

“It has been found out that the children are affected by acute flaccid paralysis and it is not due to polio. It is mandatory for us to check the samples of each and every children affected by paralysis in the region,” said R.K. Sehgal, the district reproductive and child health officer.

He said apart from polio, there are several other reasons for being affected by acute flaccid in children.

“A child can fall prey to acute flaccid paralysis if he is administered any wrong medicine by a doctor. In some cases it has been found out that the child fell from a height and through the trauma he was affected by acute flaccid paralysis. Most of the cases lead to paralysis of the lower limbs,” said another official at the civil surgeon office.

He said the stool tests of the children were carried out within four days of the paralytic attack.