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JAIPUR: Six children under 10 have died in remote villages of Rajasthan‘s Deeg district in the last 30 days from diphtheria, a contagious bacterial disease thought to have almost disappeared as a result of high immunisation.
State officials could not recall so many fatalities so swiftly in recent years from the disease, whose symptoms include fever, sore throat and difficulty in swallowing, and obstruction of the airways in severe cases.Transmission is most often person-to-person through droplets or secretions from the respiratory tract or direct contact.
Two of the children who died were vaccinated, three were not while the immunisation status of the sixth is not known yet. On Saturday, the health department confirmed that a boy who died at Jaipur’s state-run SMS Hospital on Oct 9 had succumbed to diphtheria. The department said 10 additional samples had been sent for tests. The first death in Deeg was reported on Sept 14, with the victim a 7-year-old boy. Three more deaths were reported on Sept 28, of children between 5 and six years old. Later, a 5-year-old boy passed away.
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