Malkangiri, Nov 23: Two days after expert team claimed that the outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in Malkangiri is due to consumption of toxic beans, the district administration on Tuesday swung into action and raided godowns, local markets and trading centres in the district suspecting adulteration of pulses.
Official sources said the raid was conducted at several places in the district. Reports reaching here inform, the officials of district administration and Supply department have collected samples from the shops and trading centres. Official sources added that several teams were formed to undertake simultaneous raids on the trading centres and pulses market. The district administration suspects that since the toxic beans (scientific name Cassia Occidentalis), commonly known as Bana Chakunda in Odia dialect are widely available in the region, the traders could have adulterated pulses with these beans which, according to the expert team led to the death of 116 children in the region so far.
The head of the team Jacob Jonn in a press conference had said that Anthraquinone is the suspected toxin found in a plant called Cassia Occidentalis. Urine samples of a few children tested positive indicating that the children must have consumed the seeds of the plant. He added that the urine samples of few kids of Malkangiri district was sent for examination to the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research in Lucknow. According to Jonn, consumption of these beans can cause severe childhood illnesses with acute hepato-myo-encephalopathy syndrome that affects the liver, muscles and the brain. However, experts argued that such evidence is baseless because no direct link of the toxicity to brain damage has been established. Just its presence in urine cannot be the sole evidence to conclude that it caused death among the children.
