Medical panel to visit Kaliachak

Malda: A two-member expert committee, including Dr Dipankar Majhi, state surveillance officer, is slated to visit the child, supposedly affected by avian virus H9N2, as claimed by WHO.

The team is to reach Malda on Thursday evening and will visit the child in Kaliachak on Friday.

The experts will also review the health infrastructure of Malda, especially emphasising influenza-like Illness (ILI) after the second case of H9N2 detection in India, as per the claims of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

A girl of 4 years was admitted to Malda Medical College and Hospital with symptoms of influenza on January 26 and after treatment of over a month, she was referred to Kolkata. The blood samples of the child were later sent to Pune, Maharashtra where it was confirmed that the child was infected with H9N2 avian virus.

After further treatment, the child recovered and was sent home. WHO published this in its journal as the second case of this virus after the first occurring in 2019 in India.

Sudipta Bhaduri, Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) Malda, said: “This virus is not transferable from human to human.

As many as 14 members of that family of the child have tested

negative for the virus and the

Animal Resource Development department also found no trace of this in almost 29000 samples

of poultry.”