Doctors suspect that mosquitoes could be carriers of the disease. The experts from NIV are expected to arrive in Siliguri on Friday. Headache and drowsiness are the symptoms of the disease. The patient then develops high fever. In the initial cases, some neurosurgeons in Siliguri had certified the reason for the deaths as encephalitis.
Doctors note that the disease has affected people from all sections of society and all age groups.
Panic-stricken residents of Siliguri allege that the government had been negligent in identifying the mystery disease. It is perhaps too early to hazard guesses. The local authorities seem to favour a viral etiology, but have ruled out involvement of Japanese encephalitis virus. The status of the cerebral malaria diagnosis is unclear. The fate of the patients is not disclosed in this report.