School kids prone to epilepsy: Docs

In a country plagued by debilitating diseases, here's another one to worry aboutu00a0-- Epilepsy. Today, as the world marks Epilepsy Day, doctors are worried about an emerging trend that is plaguing school-going children in the city.


Infectious: Doctors say children get the condition from consuming
contaminated food or water, which may contain tapeworms.

Neurocysticercosis is a condition that affects people in the age group of five to 20 who consume contaminated water or food products.

Doctors explain that when a contaminated food product finds it way into the stomach, it carries a tapeworm which claws its way into the blood stream before hatching multiple eggs in the brain, causing electrical charges to be discharged, which then causes seizures.

Chandran Gnanamuthu, head of Neurology at Fortis, said, "This particularly affects the younger population because they tend to eat outside and water in the city is generally dirty. I see at least five such cases every month and they rarely need surgery. It's a treatable condition for the most part but it's worrying because this is a new trend in epilepsy."

Nearly four per cent of India's population suffers from epilepsy, of which 20 per cent have to deal with the sickness with oral medication on a long-term basis.

80 per cent of the cases are idiopathic (arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause) while 20 per cent are attributed to head trauma and neurological causes.

V C Shanmughananda, president of the Indian Medical Association in Bangalore, said, "It was a disease that used to affect non-vegetarians but now even pure vegetarians have to worry because contaminated water is used to water vegetables."

"Contaminated ground water that is used to grow green vegetables like coriander leaves may carry flatworms. It's important that they are cleaned before consumption.

Those who indulge in pork should also watch out. When the flatworm goes through its life cycle in a human body, it wreaks havoc," said G N Manjunath, vice-president, Indian Epilepsy Association.