Mysterious disease kills 9 children in Bangladesh

Dhaka: At least nine children from an ethnic minority community have died of a mysterious disease in Bangladesh with doctors struggling to diagnose the cause of the deaths.

Forty-six others were being treated at a specialised hospital in southeastern Bangladesh.

All the children, who have died in four days, belong to the Tripura tribe.

“The children, aged between two and 10 years, belonged to the Tripura tribe… they were suffering from the disease with symptoms of watery diarrhoea, vomiting and respiratory complications,” chief government doctor of Chittagong Azizur Rahman Siddique said.

The disease appeared to be infectious one but so far was concentrated in one village, he said.

Siddique asked the villagers to temporarily confine nearly 600 school-going children at home so that the disease could not spread.

Officials of Sitakunda sub-district, where the disease broke out, said all the children belonged to the Tripura community. Four of them died today.

A health ministry spokesman said a special medial team has been sent to the area for further actions.

—PTI