Kelantan may face DIL epidemic

Star: TANAH MERAH: The acute neurological syndrome (DIL), which has struck four people here and killed two, has the potential to become an epidemic. Another person has been infected with the Japanese Encephalitis virus.
State Public Health Committee chairman Takiyuddin Hassan said health experts conveyed this point to the state government during a recent briefing to state executive councillors.
There is also concern for the re-emergence of the deadly JE virus, carried by the culex tritaeniorhynchus mosquito, since there are similarities between JE and DIL.
Two 13-year-old girls, Siti Mardiana Mohd Romli and Nasnira Akmar Hussin, died recently from DIL.
However, Takiyuddin said, there was no need for panic as precautionary steps were being taken, such as fogging and screening.
He said the people's cooperation was needed to maintain hygiene in premises and households while the two schools attended by the dead victims, SMK Gual Ipoh and SM Arab Trenang, would be checked.
Siti Mardiana's father Mohd Romli Mohd Zaid, 34, and her five-year old brother Mohd Awi have been warded at the Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital here.
The other patient is 27-year-old Noorhayati Awang, who has been infected with the JE virus.
Health experts called in to probe the possible re-emergence of JE in Tanah Merah were puzzled by the distance between the five suspected cases, said Takiyuddin.
The two schoolgirls who died, and the others lived more than 13km away from Noorhayati.
The maximum flying range for mosquitoes carrying JE , said Takiyuddin, was 2km.
“Yet, the five who contracted it lived far apart and did not have any contact with each other,” he said.
“This can only mean that there might be more than one breeding ground for the culex mosquito in Tanah Merah, giving rise to a possible epidemic,” he said.
JE occurs when the culex mosquito bites an animal, usually pigs, before biting humans, causing the virus to enter the bloodstream of the final host (humans).
The last known JE case in Kelantan was in 1995, he said.
A total of 1,416 households have been fogged since Monday and four areas were found to breed the culex mosquito.