VIJAYAWADA: The West Godavari district administration officials have suspected food poisoning might have caused the recent mystery illness incident at Pulla Village, Bhimadolu mandal in the district. Disclosing the further details, Joint Collector (Medical) Himanshu Shukla told TNIE that no new cases of mystery illness have not been reported in the last 24 hours. The possibility of water contamination to be the probable reason for the mystery illness has been ruled out as the preliminary laboratory reports didn’t show any presence of heavy metals injurious to human health in the samples sent by the administration, he said.
Elaborating further, the Joint Collector said that in all, 29 persons were admitted in the Eluru Government Hospital, of which 25 discharged and four are undergoing treatment. Doctors after examining their health condition will discharge them on Thursday. “After examining the cases, we came to know that there are no major similarities to the mystery illness that broke out in Eluru during the first week of December. We are suspecting that food poisoning might be the reason for the mystery illness in Pulla which came to light after the Sankranti festive season”, Shukla said.
In all, the food safety department officials have collected samples of vegetables at markets and food items from the village and sent the same to the laboratory. Reports are expected to arrive on Thursday morning, he added.