CHANDIGARH: Six children died during the past fortnight at Chilli village in Haryana's Palwal district due to fever and other illness, said officials ruling out dengue and Covid as the cause of their death.
An official said apart from them, a child died at home "due to aspiration of milk and had nothing to do with illness".
Palwal's Chief Medical Officer Dr Brahm Deep, who visited the village on Wednesday said the six children who died were aged under 10.
They died in hospital, he said, adding that "all patients tested negative for Covid".
All of them did not test positive for dengue, he told PTI over the phone.
The authorities at Nuh's Nalhar Medical College said one of the six children had congestive heart failure with severe anemia.
Among other children who died were having symptoms of fever with pneumonitis, loose motion and fever with stiffness of body.
Some local residents reportedly complained about poor sanitation in the village.
"We have done a survey of all 300 houses in the village. We did 400 tests for malaria, 12 Elisa test for dengue and 400 tests for Covid. All of them were negative, the chief medical officer said.
As for fever, he said, "We are conducting a house-to-house survey. On Sunday, when the survey was started, we had 64 fever cases that day.
Today, there are only 12 cases of fever in the total population, he said, adding that the situation is "under control".
No death has taken place in the past two days, the doctor said.
He said no death occurred due to lack of care.
All facilities were available, he said.
"The situation has been handled very firmly. On Saturday, we came to know about the situation, the same day I stationed my team there," he said.
The Health Department has set up a temporary hospital in the village with the facility of oxygen and medicines, he said, adding that an ambulance has also been stationed.
"In every home, we have distributed a mosquito net and we have also disturbed face masks," he said.
The Palwal CMO further said earlier there was resistance related to Covid vaccination in the village.
"We are hopeful of covering this village with 100 per cent vaccination this week," he said.