Baharampur, June 10: The mysterious disease affecting children in West Bengal's Murshidabad district has claimed twenty more lives taking the death toll to 39. The twenty children in the age group of one to six died in different blocks of Jangipur sub-division during the past couple of days, district health department sources said today.
Five children were now being treated in Jangipur hospital, the sources said.
Earlier 19 deaths were reported from Lalgola area of the district.
Although the disease was yet to be identified, the common symptom was high fever, the sources said adding blood and stool samples have been sent to Kolkata for examination.
Medical camps were set up in both the areas.
The director of health services, Prabhakar Chatterjee who toured the affected areas over the weekend with a team of experts told reporters in Kolkata yesterday malnutrition, heat pyrexia and electrolyte imbalance were being considered as possible causes. Bureau Report