FATEHGARH SAHIB: Mohammed Jakir, father of Gudia and a resident of Sirhind town of district Fatehgarh had gone to Uttar Pradesh (UP) on May 5 after watching the deteriorating health of his daughter Gudia and admitted her in a Sultanpur based hospital where she died on May 10 at 5 PM. Her death is supected to be a polio case but the doctor is claiming that it is a case of meningitis.

Fategarh Sahib Civil Surgeon Dr Harcharan Singh said that Gudia died due to meningitis in Uttar Pardesh. Talking to media persons, Dr Singh said that as per reports available in his office Gudia died due to meningitis and not of polio.

The doctors examined Gudia first on May 9 and took the sample of her stool but before taking second sample of the stool, she died. After the death of the child, the health authorities in UP sent the details of the case to Punjab Health Department. The stool of Gudia was sent to the Central Research Institute (CRI), Kasuali  to confirm if it was a polio case.

The Civil Surgeon said that he has contacted by the CRI authorities and his office would receive report of this case within a month. Even without receiving the result of the report of CRI, Dr Singh was confident that Gudia has not died of polio. He claimed that he had vast experience of immunization and Gudia did not died of polio as she was administrated with polio drops well in time and as per requirement by the health authorities.

Talking about two other suspected children Gagandeep Singh, a resident of Nandpur Kalour and Navjot Kaur, a resident of village Mainjari, the Civil Surgeon said that these two children were suffering from induration due to DPT vaccine. He said that now both the children are hail and hearty. He said both the children have been already administrated polio drops.

He said that stool samples sent to Kasouli regarding the A.F.P is a routine method to rule out polio virus but as such no case has happened in the district Fatehgarh Sahib so far.