Bhubaneswar: Multi-organ failure due to fulminant hepatitis might have lead to the death of two women in the mango kernel incident in Odisha’s Kandhamal, Director of Public Health Nilakantha Mishra informed on Monday.
“Though we are yet to receive the postmortem and food reports, the two patients being treated at SCB Medical College and Hospital have been diagnosed with pulmonary hepatic failure due to fungal infection,” he said.
They are being treated for multi-organ failure, he added.
Two women – Ramita Patmajhi and Runu Majhi – died and six others were taken ill after allegedly consuming gruel made of mango kernel at Mandipanka village in the Daringbadi block of Kandhamal on Thursday. Two among the six were shifted to SCB in Cuttack late on Saturday evening as their condition deteriorated.
Mishra further stated that it is being suspected that the mango kernel gruel, which they consumed, had developed fungal growth having been stored for over two-three days and become toxic. “People were affected as per the amount of gruel they consumed which is why one among them died immediately,” he added.
Earlier Director of Health Services Bijay Kumar Mohapatra had informed that two women were shifted to SCB in Cuttack for better treatment. “Both the patients are now undergoing treatment in the Medicine ICU of the hospital,” he said.
Mohapatra further stated that the condition of the remaining four is stable. No other case has been reported from the region, he added.
Tuni Majhi (30) and Jeeta Majhi (30) were admitted to SCB with severe symptoms like high fever, persistent vomiting and signs of liver infection. “A team of doctors drawn from the medicine and hepatology departments of the hospital are attending to them round-the-clock. Their conditions are critical but stable at the moment,” Medicine department head Prof Jayanta Panda told the media.
Notably, the state government, which has ordered a probe into the incident, had earlier attributed the deaths to food poisoning. It had also expressed serious concern over the reluctance of some communities to shun the traditional food practice despite provisioning of adequate food grains to them.
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