In a suspected case of food poisoning, as many as 15 girls of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Awasiya Vidyalaya (KGBAV) located at Jankipur under Charwa police station of Kaushambi were admitted to the Community Health Centre (CHC) Chail and district hospital, Manjhanpur for treatment. A probe has begun in this connection.
The girls had consumed ‘aloo ka paratha’, banana, milk and pickle in their breakfast.
SP (Kaushambi) Brijesh Kumar Srivastava told mediapersons that “The condition of all students are stable and a joint team of police and district administration has been probing the incident. Girls had consumed ‘aloo ka paratha’, ‘kela’, ‘doodh’ and ‘achaar’ in their breakfast. After consuming this, some of the girls complained vomiting, stomach ache, nausea etc and were first taken to Chail CHC.
The SP, however, said “While 13 of 15 were admitted to Chail CHC, two others were later referred to district hospital, Manjhanpur for treatment.” The incident, however, shocked the block and senior police officials, including the SP and the DM (Kaushambi), who immediately reached the spot to take stock of the situation. Investigations are underway.
STUDY: Beware if you are fish lover. This is because a study has revealed that most of the toxic heavy metals may enter the human body and cause various types of cancer through fishes, both found in fresh water and sea water, if they are infected by a set of parasites.
The study, conducted by a research scholar of associate professor Neerja Kapoor of the department of Zoology, CMP Degree College (a constituent college of Allahabad University), Anita Yadav has revealed that these heavy metals could enter human body through fishes, if the same is infected by the parasite which has the potential of absorbing heavy metals. The study is also important as these parasites— Rostal Ascaris, Anisakiasis Law, Anisakiasis typica and Rotelendoclaretii Kapuri—studied in the research have the ability to absorb the heavy metals. After a marathon study of three years, both in Goa (for specimen of sea water fishes) and Prayagraj and Fatehpur (for fresh water fishes), Yadav’s study has revealed that several parasites, found inside fishes, especially Catfish, have the capacity to absorb heavy metals and thus the same enters human body when the same fish is consumed. The study has been published in the reputed international journal called Parasitic Diseases, published by Springer. Notably, heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury are considered to be extremely unsafe because of their toxicity and non-degradability, knowingly or unknowingly these heavy metals may enter into human body and cause various types of cancer.
“During the research, four parasites were found in salt and fresh water Catfish and the genome-level examination of these parasites revealed that many of the parasites found in freshwater fishes are similar to those found in saltwater fishes. The effect of the change of seasons is also seen in the diversity of parasitic infections”, explains Yadav.
In the rivers in Prayagraj, especially in Yamuna, before the onset of winter, elements of excessive salinity start increasing suddenly and with this, parasitic infection in fish too starts increasing. This changes the biological structure of the fish. “Due to the diversity of different metals and parasitic infections matching them in different months, they are called bio-detectors. With this study, environmental and fisheries experts can give advanced information to the general public by predicting the spread of parasitic diseases in the future,” she said.
This also opens a new window where the absorptive capacity of these parasites can be exploited to remove heavy metals from small water bodies, she added.
Anita explained that invasive fish species coming from the Arabian Sea transfer the marine parasite to the freshwater Catfish. From here foreign parasitic species reach the fishes of Ganga Yamuna of Prayagraj and Fatehpur. “The interesting fact about these parasites is that their soft tissues absorb metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic etc. dissolved in water. As soon as water enters the small intestine and other glands of the fish through its gills and mouth, the parasites absorb the heavy organic metals present in this water into their soft tissues”, said her guide Neerja Kapoor.
However, this does not mean that all the fishes contain heavy metals as further study needs to authenticate it. “This study was done on Catfish which does show presence of heavy metals through these parasites”, explains Kapoor.
Anita claims that thus the use of parasites as an environmental sink has been explored for the first time in India. These parasites, having the unique property of adsorbing water-dissolved heavy metals, protect the fishes from the harmful effects of heavy metals.