A mystery illness has plagued the town of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, India, every year since 1995. It is observed that during May and June each year, large numbers of young children would start showing signs of fever.
They’d have seizures and convulsions, before slipping in and out of consciousness. In 2014, hundreds of children were admitted to hospital exhibiting symptoms of this illness. Out of 390 admitted for treatment, 122 died.
Also Read: India beat England by 75 runs, clinch T20 series 2-1
According to a research report, in a journal on Tuesday, it is discovered that the unassuming lychee, otherwise known as litchi is the killing fruit behind this disease. Heat, humidity, malnourishment, the monsoon and pesticides have all been considered at one stage to be contributing factors to the illness — said to resemble encephalitis symptomatically, a disease that causes inflammation of the brain.
Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and India’s National Centre for Disease Control compared test results of children who had developed the mysterious illness, and children who had not. Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is the largest lychee farming region in India.
However, most of the children who had fallen ill had eaten lychee fruit recently. They were also six times more likely to have visited a fruit orchard in the last 24 hours, the study said. Analysis of blood and spinal fluid samples showed no signs of infection or exposure to chemicals and insecticides.
The results said that children who fell ill were twice as likely to have skipped dinner, which, according to the researchers probably resulted in “night-time hypoglycaemia.”
When their blood sugar level dropped, the body would start to metabolise fatty acids to produce a necessary boost of glucose.
However, urine samples showed that two-thirds of the ill children showed evidence of exposure to toxins found in lychee seeds — found in higher levels in unripe fruits.
In the presence of these toxins “glucose synthesis is severely impaired,” the study said, leading to dangerously low blood sugar and brain inflammation in the children.
However, the researchers said there are still some questions surrounding the mystery. For example, while orchards surround many villages in the area, typically only one child in each village develops the illness. The report suggests it may be something to do with genetics.
