One person died, and more than 400 others were rushed to a hospital in southern India due to an unspecified infection that caused the patient to experience dizziness, tremors, and fainting.
According to a Reuters report, officials and experts in the southern region of Andhra Pradesh said more than 200 people had been released from hospitals over the weekend.
They did not test positive for COVID-19, but serological tests were continuously conducted.
“The causes of the outbreak are not known yet,” said an Andhra Pradesh official. He also said that the mysterious disease caused by the infection targets all ages.
In a separate statement on Monday, the Federal Health Ministry of India said it would send a group of three medical experts to investigate the outbreak, which will examine more than 300 children.
“The children reportedly suffered from dizziness, fainting spells, headache, and vomiting,” said the health ministry, which said it would also conduct a door-to-door survey.
India’s state health department was alerted in the first case over the weekend after a 45-year-old man died, according to Geeta Prasadini, Andhra Pradesh’s public health director.
“We have taken the patients’ blood samples for serological investigation and bacterial investigation to rule out any type of meningitis,” Prasadini told Reuters.
Authorities are already investigating water supplies at 20 locations in Eluru city where the outbreak was first reported, as well as its neighbors, Prasadini added.
Also read: NAIA on alert amid mysterious viral pneumonia from China
Mysterious illness in India kills 1, hospitalized over 400 people
Andra Pradesh is also among those severely affected by COVID-19 in India.
India has recorded 9.68 million COVID-19 infections, second only to the United States worldwide.
The COVID-19 disease also started as a mysterious illness in December of 2019. In January 2020, the Philippine airport authorities alerted its staff to monitor passengers from China, Macau, and Hong Kong who could bring the mysterious viral pneumonia to the country.
At the time, no one has been able to say what kind of virus the ‘mysterious illness.’
The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission initially reported no human-to-human transmission of the illness at the time.
The total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide now reached 68,055,468, with 1,553,155 deaths.