India faces the outbreak of creeping paralysis

Last month, a school teacher in Payon in West Bonn found her six -year -old son, annoyed by homework.

“She erased some words and asked him to write them. I assumed that he was angry and for this reason he did not carry the pencil properly,” she told Indian Express.

You never imagined that his struggle to hold a pencil was the first sign of GBS syndrome (GBS)Rare disorder where the immune system attacks nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and paralysis.

Within a few days, the boy was in intensive care, unable to move his arms or legs. As his condition exacerbates, the ability to swallow, speak and breathe in the end, which requires support of the industrial respiratory system. He is now recovering.

The boy is of about 160 GBS cases since early January in Pune, an educational center and information technology, which is surrounded by towns and industrial villages. There were five suspected deaths. Currently, 48 patients in intensive care, 21 on the artificial respirator, and 38 unloaded, according to official numbers.

GBS begins with tingling or numbness in the feet and hands, followed by muscle weakness and the difficulty of moving the joints. Symptoms increase from two to four weeks, usually begin in the arms and legs. Reported mortality It ranges between three and 13 %, depending on the severity and quality of health care support.

The outbreak of the disease in Bonn is tracked to the so -called pathogens CAMPYLOBACTER JEJUNIThe main reason for the infection that transmits food, and the largest GBS driver all over the world. The relationship between the two in the nineties was discovered in the rural areas of China, where the nurse was common in chicken, and GBS spread in all the monsoon winds where children played in water contaminated with chicken or duck droppings.

GBS is not uncommon in India. Monojit Debnath and Madhu Nagappa, from the National Institute of Mental Health and Bangalore -based Nemhans (NIMHANS), 150 GBS for five years between 2014 and 2019. A third of them is a positive test for Campylobacter.

Recently, the disease -related disease has been reported from all over the world. In the first seven months of 2023, Peru mentioned More than 200 suspects and at least four cases of GBSThis prompted the government to declare the state of national health emergency and enhance public health measures. Two -thirds of the cases have been linked to Campylobacter.

In good hygiene countries, fewer GBS cases are associated with Campylobacter, with respiratory infections as a major contributor, experts say. There were other players as well. In 2015, Brazil reported a group of GBS cases associated with the Zika virus. Vaccines can rarely turn on GBS, but one Covid vaccine has been connected to A few hundred GBS cases in the United Kingdom In 2021.

“Campylobacter is a settler with hundreds of thousands of cases that occur all the time. It is always present in the environment,” said Hugh Wilison, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow.

However, it is not easy to develop GBS, as scientists say.

There is a specific strain of Campylobacter, which has an external layer coated with sugar, and in rare cases, its molecular structure matches the paint of human nerve cells.

When the patient's immune system attacks bacteria, it may end up targeting nerves as well – a process called molecular tradition – leading to GBS. However, a small part of Campylobacter strains has this nerve coat.

Professor Wilison says: “In Bonn, it is likely that a Campylobacter strain with this molecular feature is circulating, thus increasing infections with this strain leads to a greater number of GBS cases,” says Professor Wilison.

Most experts estimate that about one in 100 Campylobacter breed holds GBS risks, and one out of every 100 people with such a breed develop GBS, which makes almost the total risk of every 10,000.

This creates what Mr. Wilson describes as “immune -Russian roulette”, which leads to a “severe nervous tsunami” that declines through the peripheral nervous system. Once the immune response recedes, the attack fades – but the body still needs time, medical care and support for damage to repair.

What makes things worse is that there is no treatment for GBS.

In GBS, the body produces antibodies against Campylobacter, which then attacks nerves. Doctors use “plasma exchange”, a process that filters blood to remove harmful antibodies, along with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a therapeutic therapeutic body derived from normal blood, to help reduce the severity of the disease.

Another challenge is that there is no single test for GBS diagnosis. Doctors say that the diagnosis depends mainly on clinical features. It presents itself as a form of paralysis, which can be caused by polio, viruses, or rare neurological diseases.

“The diagnosis is a constellation of clinical features,” says Mr. Wilison.

The inaccurate public health system in India is a challenge, as doctors in rural areas to diagnose GBS may fight. One reason, perhaps, why World Health Organization (WHO) teams in BonHe cooperates with federal health workers and state governments to track and monitor cases, and analyze trends to support effective treatment.

The authorities say they have wiped more than 60,000 homes, chose 160 samples of water for tests, and asked people to drink boiled water and eat fresh and clean food, and they have no “meaningless food and partially cooked chicken.”

Experts say that while most GBS cases around the world come from uncooked poultry, they can also spread through water, such as cholera or salmonella.

Polluted water used to wash or prepare street food makes it easy for bacteria to spread. Obviously, in Pune, the Campylobacter Brain is traded with the distinctive molecular feature, which affects a large number of people.

What is unclear is whether this is due to widespread pollution of water supply or many people who consume infected poultry. “We appeal to people not to panic,” says one of the participants in the Ministry of Health. But in the face of uncertainty, it is said easier than doing it.