Litchi disappears from Odisha market after government orders lab test

BHUBANESWAR: A day after Odisha government ordered laboratory test of litchi available in the market, the summer fruit has totally disappeared from shops and pushcarts across the state on Wednesday. The juicy fruit has been blamed for the outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) that killed more than 100 kids in neighbouring Bihar.
"Summer has already gone, so are litchis from the market," said Ramesh Sahu, a fruit vendor at Kharvela Nagar trying to avoid queries on disappearance of litchis from the market.
Apparently fearing the possibility of detection of any virus in the fruits leading to some consequences, the fruit vendors did not take any chance and disposed them of. "Nobody knows whether the litchis are causing any disease or not? Why to take a risk?" said Bhaskar Patra, another vendor at Unit-1 market.
The fruit was also not available in markets of major cities including Cuttack, Berhampur, Rourkela and Sambalpur on Wednesday.
The fruit vendors said litchis available in Odisha market are being imported from Muzaffarpur of Bihar and Malda from West Bengal and some from local production in Gajapati district of the state. Every day around 3 to 5 tonnes of litchi are brought to Odisha.
Asking people not to panic health minister Naba Kishore Das urged said, "Not a single case of AES reported in the state so far and there is nothing to panic at all. The situation is totally under control. The orders to collect samples and conduct laboratory test were given to get doubly sure that there is no threat from litchis available in the market," Das said.
The AES is a syndrome that includes several diseases like Japanese encephalitis, meningitis, malaria and typhoid. Children suffering from the disease show symptoms like very high fever, fainting and fits.
“Unless and until any virus is detected from litchi we cannot say the fruit is the source or one of the reasons of the disease. There could be several other factors that caused the outbreak in Muzafafrpur area," said paediatrician Dr Subhranshu Sekhar Mohapatra.
However, Odisha has a history of an outbreak of AES in 2016 in which around 36 kids died due to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and rest were died due to AES in Malkangiri district.