 Cachar alert on wild polio
Silchar, March 21: The health authorities in South Assam’s Cachar district have ordered immunisation of nearly 1,000 children under 15 years at Kalaincherra tea estate and the adjoining areas following the detection of a suspected polio case in the garden.
Cachar joint director of health services, A.R. Majharbhuya, today said such “outbreak immunisation” would check the spread of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) syndrome among children in vulnerable areas.
He said precautionary steps have to be taken because AFP symptoms were the precursor of poliomyelitis infection among children.
Health department sources said the polio case was detected after Suman Orang, a four-year-old boy, was brought to a rural health clinic at Kalain village on Friday. The boy was running a temperature, while his left arm and leg exhibited symptoms of paralysis.
Suspecting that it was a case of wild poliovirus, the doctors at the clinic alerted the district headquarters.
Additional chief medical officer D. Paul had already rushed to Kalain, which falls on the Assam-Meghalaya border, for further investigation.
The AFP, apart from causing poliomyelitis, can trigger an array of ailments like Gaillain Barre syndrome, transverse myelitis and encephalitis.
Sources said 14 and 20 cases of AFP were detected in the three south Assam districts of Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
This year, as many as four cases, including that of Orang, have already come to light.
“Thankfully, not a single AFP case metamorphosed into poliomyelitis,” one of the sources said. Doctors said they would not hazard a guess till the laboratory examination reports were available.
The last case of wild polio in the state was detected on June 28, 2003 in Goalpara district. In 2001, a P1 wild poliovirus positive case was detected in Mangaldoi.
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| Bangla smugglers in BSF net
Silchar, March 20: The BSF on Friday foiled an attempt by a group of Bangladeshi miscreants to smuggle timber out of Karimganj.
The Bangladeshi group was cutting trees in a forest at Bilbari on the Indo-Bangla border in the district’s Patherkandi block.
A BSF sentry first noticed the group felling trees and reported the matter to his watchpost.
BSF jawans rushed to the forest and found a group of woodcutters at work.
When the woodcutters refused to stop their work, the jawans fired a few rounds and then chased the smugglers.
Sources said a bullet grazed one Bangladeshi intruder. The jawans were able to apprehend the injured person, along with three others — all residents of Islampur village under Moulavi Bazar district in Bangladesh.
The Bangladeshis were later handed over by the BSF to Patherkandi police station.
While the injured person identified himself as Amiruddin, the other three were Alimuddin, Shahin, and Amar Mia. They were grilled by the BSF to squeeze out information on cross-border smuggling.
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