NEW DELHI, June 21 (UPI) -- An outbreak of a yet undiagnosed disease has killed at least 22 children in the past few days in India's eastern Bihar state, health officials said.
Encephalitis had been suspected as the cause but health authorities have since ruled it out, The Hindu reported.
A Times of India report put the toll at 27 children.
Most of the deaths have occurred in the state's Muzaffarpur district and the victims largely have been children less than 10 years of age, The Hindu said.
Health officials said the disease shows symptoms of a type of encephalitis but have ruled out Japanese encephalitis due to the absence of symptoms of that particular strain.
"Usually one of the symptoms of Japanese encephalitis is the stiffening of the neck, which is absent in the cases here," Amarjeet Sinha, a health official, told The Hindu.
The report said all the victims suffered high fever, resulting in convulsions and seizures, and were brought to hospitals in a semi-consciousness state.
The federal government in New Delhi has dispatched a team of experts to Bihar to investigate.
