At the beginning of January, the symptoms of Naik fussy crept into her for the first time, starting with double vision, and then a devastating headache and a strange feeling on her face.
“There was heavyness in my jaw and eyes, and my throat was completely blocked,” she said. “I was very worried.”
She and her husband threw herself to the hospital, where she spent 12 days on intensive care, attached to IV for food because she couldn't speak or swallow.
Naik, a public school teacher, said that she tried to communicate with doctors to find out if she would ever recover after facial paralysis.
“I thought,” I don't want to live like that. I do not want to live with a double vision, “said Naik, 40, said CBC News from her house in Pune, a city in the western state of Maharashtra in India, where, where she slowly recovers.
It was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré or GBS syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder in which the body's immune system attacks nerves, causing muscle weakness and various levels of paralysis.
32 still intensive care
NIK is one of the 212 confirmed GBS cases in Pune from Thursday, all parts of the explosion that still sees new patients diagnosed in a city that has grown quickly, because it became the Center for Education and IT technologies.
According to Pune City officials, 11 people died on Thursday, two in the previous 48 hours.
There are several patients on respirators, and 32 still under care.
After identifying the nature of the outbreak of local authorities, they worked quickly to slow down the beds in government hospitals and cover costs, said Dr. Ameet Dravid, a specialist in infectious diseases at the private hospital of POONA.
But the initial days of the explosion at the beginning of January, when many patients came to Ers with severe diarrhea and creeping paralysis, were filled with confusion.
“From one case of GBS per month to the hospital, we went to six a week” in each of the three hospitals in a limited PUNE area, said Dravid, who treated and monitored several patients.
“It was the first suspicion that something was wrong.”
The authorities analyzed political fluids from patients and followed the explosion to a pathogen called Campylobacter Jejuni, which is a common cause of food transmitted by food and is considered the main type of bacteria causing GBS around the world.
But the disorder is rare, because only the specific strain of the Jeuuni Campylobacter, which has an outer layer that imitates the structure of nerve cells, actually leads to the development of autoimmune disease. The outer layer around this special pathogen strain deceives the body's immune system to kill its nerve cells next to bacteria, causing paralysis in the patient.
Challenges in treatment
The World Health Organization has sent teams to Pune to help local health care employees in tracking and monitoring cases in the affected area to make sure that “every suspected case has been identified, diagnosed and treated” He said in a communiqué.
GBS is extremely difficult to diagnose, especially for doctors in distant parts of India, because it requires specialized test sets.
“If it happened in rural areas, it would be very difficult to diagnose these cases of GBS,” said Dravid CBC News from his private clinic, adding that he was grateful that patients were admitted to hospitals in which qualified neurologists were available to identify the cause of paralysis .
After extensive tests of over 6,000 water samples, officials have traced the likely source of the pathogen, which caused that so much will get so much ill with severe diarrhea, polluted wells and many other sources of water.
They believe that bacterial pollution has entered the supply of water in the area where the bonfire is concentrated, but I do not know how it happened.
“We have to wake up”
Health officials in Pune, together with the state authorities of Maharashtra, repeatedly told the residents not to panic, adding that there were control measures of pollution, although these measures are unclear.
At the beginning there were also fears that traces of pathogen were found in a raw chicken, but officials claimed that many samples appeared negatively. Experts believe that if the poultry was wore a pathogen, it could be after washing the water containing bacteria.
“It's a failure of public health,” said Dravid. “We have to wake up.”
The city of Pune in India reported dozens of cases of Guillain-Barré or GBS syndrome, which is a rare disorder in which the body's immune system attacks nerves, causing paralysis. The authorities say that the explosion is associated with the pathogen in polluted water.
The scope of the explosion indicates a greater problem in rapidly developing India, but one that is particularly sharp in Pune, one of the fastest growing cities in a country where a lot moves to this area to get opportunities to work in the IT sector: purification objects Water and water cleansing and the doctor said that other means of public health did not keep up with the pace of urbanization.
“Currently, the hustle and bustle is growing that public health must be more important,” said Dravid, especially when Pune also saw a record number of cases of Dengi last year during a very wet monsoon season.
Viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes is also an important problem of public health, because it can cause long -term health problems, and its annual mortality rate increases. Last year was The worst in records In the case of dengi cases around the world.
As for GBS, the recovery rate is quite high – usually about 95 percent, although the recovery degree differ. But the complication is that there is no treatment and treatment is expensive.
After the initial immune attack, it causes muscle weakness and creeping paralysis, GBS patients usually require time and significant physiotherapy to repair nerve damage.
A significant number of Dravida patients still have a weakness of limbs or symptoms such as tingling and numbness, while others use wheelchairs to avoid falling.
“This is the real cost of this war that we fought last month.”
Long -term effects
Naik and her family feel the costs associated with her illness – she is still harassed by a double vision and is unable to teach.
She temporarily lost her income when she tries to recover; Her mother moved to her home to help in her daily tasks when she was on sick leave.
“(Our) finances were in crisis because the treatment is very, very expensive,” Naik said, and her medical insurance did not include full costs, and the hospital staff demanded the remaining payment before serving her. The state government began to cover the costs of treatment of patients in government hospitals, not private, at the end of January.
She said she was trying to keep a positive look at her 16-year-old daughter.
But above all, there is anxiety related to her vision and the state of water, to which she and her family have access.
“I'm very afraid to drink water or eat fruit or vegetables. I don't know if it's safe? “