With a ‘mystery fever’ claiming the lives of seven children in two villages at Haryana’s Palwal district, the state health department on Wednesday said prima facie, the probable cause of the outbreak could be a leakage in the pipeline of drinking water.

The additional chief secretary of the health department, Rajeev Arora said the probable reason for the outbreak could be a leakage in the pipeline of drinking water and public health officers have been instructed to repair it at the earliest.

He specified the final cause of deaths among these children can only be commented upon after completion of epidemiological investigation but prima facie, the probable cause of outbreak could be the unhygienic conditions and illegal drinking water pipe connections that led to contamination of drinking water.

Some deaths may be due to pneumonia and gastroenteritis as per records of Nalhad Medical College, Arora added.

As per the health department’s survey regarding the suspected fever outbreak at village Chilli and Chilla in Palwal, out of the seven deaths, two deaths were reported to be of children below five years of age and five deaths were of children above five years of age. The population of the affected villages Chilli and Chilla is 2947 and 763 respectively. This outbreak started on 9 September.

Arora said as per ongoing epidemiological investigation, house to house active case search for fever cases is being done. Besides this, all antilarval activities like fogging, water bodies checking etc are ongoing in the affected area.

Meanwhile, as per the laboratory findings of the area there are all negative reports of 175 Malaria Blood Slides, negative reports of 250 RDT Malaria test reports, non-reactive 12 Dengue ELISA samples, negative reports of 64 RTPCR Covid-19 tests and negative reports of 50 Covid-19 Antigen test.

A temporary medical camp has been set up in the area and cases are being treated symptomatically and referred as per the severity, Arora said. The health department is putting all possible efforts to control the situation in the affected area and as of date, the situation is under control. We are keeping a strict vigil on the situation, added Arora.

He said the Rapid Response Team visited the affected area on 12 September to investigate the outbreak and a household survey was done wherever deaths were reported. Furthermore, as per ongoing epidemiological investigation, house to house active case search for fever cases is being done by the health teams and a total of 1089 houses have been visited and checked till yesterday.