11 Nov 2007 12:28:33 GMT
Source: Reuters

DHAKA, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Encephalitis disorder has killed 21 people,
mostly children, and affected some 200 others at a remote part of
Bangladesh over the past week, health officials said on Sunday.

But they said they were yet to confirm what caused the disease. At least
30 people are still in hospitals, with fever and vomiting.

The authorities employed several medical teams to control the disease,
which was earlier branded as a mystery illness when it first broke out
at Goainghat near Sylhet town, 350 km (219 miles) northeast of the
capital Dhaka.

"The preliminary diagnosis revealed that it (disease) was a type of
encephalitis, inflammation of the brain," Mahmudur Rahman, head of a
diagnostic team told Reuters.

Rahman said the patients were severely malnourished, with limited
physical resistance against the disease. He however could not say why
the patients were so malnourished.

He said Bangladesh's International Epidemiology Research Centre was
closely working with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in
the United States to determine which bacteria or virus had caused the
disease.

Encephalitis killed 23 people and infected dozens in Bangladesh in 2004.
Before the diagnosis, many feared that the disease was bird flu.

Bird flu in Bangladesh has forced authorities to cull nearly 268,000
chickens and destroy nearly three million eggs since March this year.

Authorities said there was no case of human infection. (Reporting by
Nizam Ahmed; editing by Sami Aboudi)

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