Samikhsya Bureau
After over 160 children in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar died due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome, many people tried to attribute the cause of death to litchi, a fruit that is grown in a big way in the district, in a view to deflecting the real reason behind it — malnutrition.
Sixty per cent of India’s litchis was produced by Bihar alone and the litchi farmers suffered heavy losses because of it. Besides Bihar, farmers of Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir also cultivate the fruit.
Unverified reports said that the fruit contained a naturally occurring toxin called Mythyl Cyclopropyl Glycine that supposedly caused AES in the children. The Bihar government initiated studies to ascertain litchi’s connection with AES. As prevention, many other states too asked their health departments to conduct tests on the luscious fruit.
The National Institute of Litchi Research Centre of Indian Agriculture Research Council at Muzaffarnagar, however, did not find any toxic and harmful substance in the fruit which lead to AES or similar ailments. But in the meantime, litchi farmers in Muzaffarpur have incurred a heavy loss of over Rs.100 crore. “Tonnes of litchis got wasted as there was no buyer for the harvest,” said a litchi trader in the district.
Now the government of Himachal Pradesh, which is one of India’s biggest big producers of litchi, has come forward in the defence of the fruit. “Himachal Pradesh has around 5,875 hectares area under litchi cultivation and produces around 5,467 MT litchi. Kangra district alone contributes 3,817 MT output in 3,303 hectare area. But no case of AES was reported in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab and no harmful substance was traced in the litchis in the states. Moreover, the fruit is highly nourishing and beneficial to health of people and it does not cause any disease,” a state government spokesperson said on Saturday.
Litchi has high food, nutrition, health and economical beneficial value and it does not lead to any major disorder and rumours are being created in the social media about outbreak of AES in Bihar, according to the spokesman.
Many doctors seem to agree with the view. They said it was not litchi but malnutrition in children that was the main cause of AES in Bihar, but added that a toxin in litchi fruit inhibited the body’s ability to produce glucose thereby lowering their blood sugar level in in malnourished children whose sugar level was already low due to empty stomach. But they clarified that consumption of litchi would cause no harm in children who had their proper meal.
The deaths, they said, reflected the poor nutrition level of children in Bihar and it was not fair to blame litchi.
