Every year in India, dozens (and even more than a hundred) children die from a mysterious fatal brain disease. In 2014, 150 children died, and in 2019, 53 children have already died in the last 10 days.
Only in recent years have doctors found out that most likely it is a toxin that is formed in lychee fruits at this time of the year and affects only weakened children's organisms.
Deaths in 2019 were reported in two hospitals in Bihar state in eastern India. Another 40 sick children are being treated there.
Overcrowded children's hospital in India.
All patients showed symptoms similar to acute encephalitis syndrome, and blood glucose levels dropped sharply.
The mysterious deadly disease has been killing Indian children every year since 1995, and all outbreaks occur exclusively in the summer months. The suspicion of a connection with lychee fruit was revealed after it turned out that most of the patients ate these fruits shortly before the onset of ailments.
In 2015, American researchers studied the chemical composition of ripening lychee fruits and found a toxic substance in it that can negatively affect children with weak immune systems.
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It is curious that outbreaks of a mysterious epidemic in India are recorded only in the city of Muzaffarpur and its environs. There are indeed many lychee trees growing there, but lychees also grow in other states of India and there are no outbreaks recorded.
Something similar, but on a much smaller scale, was observed in Bangladesh and Vietnam and also in areas where lychees grow.
In sick children, due to pathological processes in the brain, there is a change in the mental state, seizures and ultimately all this often leads to death.
At the moment, this strange disease is at an early stage of study. In India it is better known as "chamki bukhar".