Nepal mobilizes medico team to control unidentified disease

An outbreak of a strange disease in a remote village in far-western district of Dadeldhura in Nepal has claimed the lives of eight people over the past two weeks, causing severe panic among the locals.

The disease could be viral influenza or common cold, National Health Education, Information and Communication Center said in a release on Sunday.

District Health Office has been mobilized four-member medicos' team to the affected area Sunday to bring the disease under control, the release issued here quoted In-charge of District Health Office, Dadeldhura Shiva Dutta Bhatta, as saying.

News about the disease that received high coverage in various newspapers drew serious attention of the center, the release stated.

The Health Service Department, Division for Epidemiology and Disease Control, has also deployed a team along with some medicines to the ridded area, the press release stated.

Some 400 more have been infected with what has been termed by local media as "mystery disease" in adjoining villages of the same district, some 750 km west of Kathmandu, according to Kantipur FM, a 24-hour private radio station.

Those afflicted with the strange disease had died shortly after showing symptoms of severe headache, fever, cough and breathing difficulty, the report said.

Source: Xinhua