Health & Wellness
The patients had a wide range of symptoms from nausea to fits and falling unconscious, doctors said.
Officials are investigating the cause of the illness, which swept through the town of Eluru over the weekend.
It comes as India continues to battle a pandemic, with the world's second-highest coronavirus caseload.
Andhra Pradesh has been one of the worst-affected states - at more than 800,000, it has the country's third-highest case count.
But Covid-19 doesn't appear to be the cause of the hospitalisations over the weekend. The state's health minister, Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas, said that all the patients had tested negative for coronavirus.
"The people who fell sick, especially the children, suddenly started vomiting after complaining of burning eyes. Some of them fainted or suffered bouts of seizures," a medical officer at Eluru Government Hospital told The Indian Express newspaper.
Seventy people have been discharged, while another 157 are still being treated, officials said.
The state's chief minister, Jaganmohan Reddy, said that special medical teams are being sent to Eluru to investigate the cause of the illness. Mr Reddy is also expected to visit the town to meet the patients and their families.
Mr Srinivas said that the patients' blood samples did not reveal any evidence of a viral infection.
"We ruled out water contamination or air pollution as the cause after officials visited the areas where people fell sick," he said. "It is some mystery illness and only lab analysis will reveal what it is."
However the opposition Telugu Desam Party has called for an enquiry into the incident, insisting that contamination was the cause of the mystery illness.
Reader Comments
[Link]
India's 'Mysterious Illness' Was In Same Location As COVID Vaccine Trial & Mandatory Vaccine Bill
Of course, this doesn't surprise me.
Sad that folks like us have to try to find out what the BFM doesn't bother to seek.
RC
SOTTfolk: Here's something scary:That comment by SmirkingImperialist (love that name)
1) In Brazil, in 1987, there was a bad nuclear incident where radioactive Cesium 137 for radiation therapy was taken from an out of business hospital and which killed and injured lots of people caused HUGE damages. Wee wee pee pee ahh on that: [Link]
2) Just a few hours ago, At Reddit's 'hold my feeding tube' (HMFT) board of videos and comments, there's a video someone posted a video of someone playing with an identical radiation therapy canister of what appears to be C-137 and dated about two weeks ago. [Link] Watch the video (30 seconds);
3) Read the top entry after the video by a nuclear scientist;
4) Down the page, (Control-F smirking) a comment validly brings up that this looks like that 1987 disaster is unfolding in realtime!!! (And they've NOT discovered it yet!; i.e., the above people might be ill from radiation sickness! relating to that radiation therapy canister in the video from 11/2020!!!! )
Cue mysterious illness in an Indian province with Urdu speaking populationSCARY!
If the source is breached and is Cs-137 a good enough alpha source to seriously hurt someone if ingested? Then if it's the curiosity of the village kind of deal and people come see the glowing rock and get exposed a lot, will they get sick enough for seizures, vomiting, and burning sensations in the eyes? This video was 18/11/2020, and the Indian illness news is 8/12/2020.
R.C.
Yes, this is a Cs-137 source, which has been lost around January, 2019, and guess where... in Andhra Pradesh, the place of the mysterious illness. [Link]RC
RC
R.C.