A few days later, the entire family of the deceased reached Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital (STIDH) seeking treatment for what appeared to be flu. Doctors at the hospital confirmed that the whole family was infected with H3N2 virus, which is also called Hong Kong flu.The discovery led the family members of the deceased and the doctors who treated him to believe that he might have died of Hong Kong flu.
Doctors at the STIDH said that exact cause of about 90 percent of ailments and deaths resulting from communicable diseases generally do not get identified.
"Governments and international community issue alerts when a huge number of people get infected or die from an outbreak," said Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, of the STIDH, adding, "But when only a handful of people get infected, no attempts are being made to get to the bottom." He said that neither the government nor the international agencies working in Nepal's health sectors show willingness to investigate the cause of the ailments and deaths.
"Doctors just prescribe antibiotics that heal the ailments in most of the cases," said Dr Pun. He said that in most of the cases, neither the doctors nor the patients know about the cause of the ailments.
According to Dr Pun, the number of patients with fever and jaundice has increased in the hospital in the last few days. Some patients were infected with hepatitis A and hepatitis E. He said that the contaminated water could have caused the hepatitis infections. "As far as I know, no one has alerted the authority that distributes water about the rising cases of hepatitis," said Dr Pun.
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