officials in the indian state of andhra
pradesh are still struggling to identify
a mysterious illness
after the number of people affected
continues to rise
300 people of all ages have reported
symptoms in the last two days
including seizures dizziness and
vomiting one man
has died i'm joined now by the bbc zepty
buffini who is in hyderabad for us what
is the very latest
from medical officials that there what
do they think is causing this
right now they are still yet to
determine what has caused this illness
because uh their the test samples have
come back they have initially collected
the blood samples and the spinal fluid
samples from the victims who have
rushed who were us to the hospital
yesterday before yesterday and
the test reports have come back normal
from rita's blood samples and the spinal
fluid
samples for now they have sent the
samples for further analysis to be for
the uh for cellular and molecular
analysis
and those test reports are awaited and
the authorities are
conducting door-to-door medical campaign
uh medical
emergency campaigns to see if there are
any other people who are suffering mild
symptoms or similar symptoms
in the town to see what must have caused
this for now they are yet to determine
what has caused
this illness but right now the priority
of the authority seems to
uh contain the panic in the town so that
the people
the focus seems to be on containing the
panic so that while they determine
what has caused the sickness have all
those
uh people in hospital right now and
those affected being tested for
coronavirus
yes all of them the initial tests the
first tests that were conducted on them
were for the coronavirus
and uh the authorities have told us that
all of them have tested the negative for
coronavirus
so that has been eliminated as the cause
that uh as a reason of the will
of this illness uh so after that they
have went on to determine
uh what must have caused so that is
where the blood samples
and the spinal because some of them have
complained of spinal pain
and also fatigue so the spinal fluid
from the victim from the patients who
have
who have been rushed to the hospital
those also have been collected and all
those tests
the reports have come back normal but uh
while uh
the the reports about the test samples
have also been sent to virology labs
across the country to determine if there
are
any other virus that must have caused
this and deity are children affected by
this as well
yes across the age groups there is no
particular age group or
or a particular gender which has been
affected it is across the age groups who
are
who have been affected by this uh
illness
when we spoke to the health official uh
this afternoon there
she uh she seemed to uh she said that
what she has observed from the patients
who have been brought to hospital most
of them were men
but yes there were there were a sizable
number of women and children who are at
the hospital receiving treatment
deeply thanks for updating us from
hyderabad on that mysterious illness
affecting
several hundred people there