Mysterious disease kills 13 in Badhaal village of J&K’s Rajouri: More on it

At least 13 people, including two children, have lost their lives due to a mysterious illness in the Badhaal village of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir. The Health Department has conducted aggressive contact tracing as well as sampling in the village to ascertain the cause of the disease, The New Indian Express reported.

The disease, so far, has been confined to three families in the village, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Rajouri, Dr Manohar Lal told the English daily.

He added that aggressive testing and surveillance were underway to identify potential health risks. There are 5,700 people in the village, and more than 12,000 tests have been conducted, he added.

An elderly man, identified as Mohammad Yousuf, died Monday evening. He is believed to have developed some symptoms in the afternoon and was soon rushed to the Community Health Centre (CHC) in Kandi. He was later referred to the GMC Associated Hospital Rajouri, according to Greater Kashmir.

On Monday, two children died after six kids from the family of Mohammad Aslam were admitted to hospital. They were taken to the community health centre for a medical check-up on Saturday and were initially referred to the Government Medical College (GMC) Associated Hospital in Rajouri. Thereafter, they were shifted to the SMGS Hospital in Jammu where Nabeena 5, passed away on Sunday. A day later, two more children — Zahoor (14) and Maroof (8) — died during treatment at the hospital, PTI reported.

Badhaal, which comes under the Kotranka sub-division, has been grappling with the mysterious disease since December 2024.

As per reports, five members of a family died due to the mystery disease on December 7 last year, followed by the deaths of three children on December 12.

Some of the most common symptoms witnessed in patients include fever, vomiting, sweating, dehydration as well as episodic loss of consciousness.

Preliminary investigations in the matter have pointed towards a viral infection as the cause of the mysterious deaths, Dr Ashutosh Gupta, principal of GMC Hospital, said last month.

However, he noted that further studies were required to reach a definitive conclusion.

Meanwhile, several experts from the Pune-based National Institute of Virology, PGI Chandigarh, AIIMS Delhi as well as the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have already visited the region to help in the investigation.