MIAMI: A mysterious and sometimes fatal brain disease that has afflicted children in northeastern India for years could be linked to a toxic substance in litchi fruits, US researchers said on Thursday.

Investigators say more research is needed to uncover the cause of the illness, which leads to seizures, altered mental state and death in more than a third of cases.

In the meantime, doctors who encounter sick children should takes steps to rapidly correct low blood sugar, which can make the disease more likely to be fatal, said the report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The outbreaks have coincided with the month-long litchi harvesting season in and around the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar state since 1995, said the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2013, some 133 children were admitted to local hospitals with seizures and neurological symptoms. Most were aged one to five, and nearly half (44 percent) of them died.

Those who died were more than twice as likely as other patients to have been admitted to the hospital with low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2015

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