Earlier today, Sharell Cook from AboutIndia on Twitter tagged me on a couple of news articles, which are the following.
Tomato flu outbreak in India spreads to two more states
New viral infection detected in dozens of children in Kerala, and now also in Tamil Nadu and Odisha
An outbreak of a new viral infection referred to as tomato flu that was first detected in children in the southern Indian state of Kerala in May has spread to two other states.
According to an article in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 82 children aged under five had been diagnosed with the virus in Kerala as of 26 July.
Cases have now been reported in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state and in Odisha in the east, where children as old as nine have been infected, even though the virus usually affects under-fives.
Scientists are still trying to identify exactly what this virus is. It has been referred to as tomato flu because of the painful red blisters it produces on the body, and it is very contagious. Children are particularly vulnerable because it spreads easily through close contact, such as via nappies, touching unclean surfaces or putting things in mouths.
“The rare viral infection is in an endemic state and is considered non-life-threatening; however, because of the dreadful experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, vigilant management is desirable to prevent further outbreaks,” the Lancet article said.
Doctors say diagnosing tomato flu is difficult because its symptoms are very similar to those of Covid, chikungunya and dengue fever.
The same disease is expected to spread in Australia. Per the Lancet letter, a new possible new disease outbreak happened in the Kerala region in India, from the Lancet letter.
Although the tomato flu virus shows symptoms similar to those of COVID-19 (both are associated with fever, fatigue, and bodyaches initially, and some patients with COVID-19 also report rashes on the skin), the virus is not related to SARS-CoV-2. Tomato flu could be an after-effect of chikungunya or dengue fever in children rather than a viral infection. The virus could also be a new variant of the viral hand, foot, and mouth disease, a common infectious disease targeting mostly children aged 1–5 years and immunocompromised adults, and some case studies have even shown hand, foot, and mouth disease in immunocompetent adults. Tomato flu is a self-limiting illness and no specific drug exists to treat it.
I found this news article quite informative too.
From monkeypox to COVID-19, why Kerala is a hotbed of diseases
Kerala reported India’s first case of monkeypox. The country’s first case of COVID-19 also was detected in the state. Both the diseases were traced in expats who flew into the state from abroad
Incidentally, Kerala is also where the first case of COVID-19 infection was recorded. On 27 January 2020, a 20-year-old female presented to the Emergency Department in General Hospital, Thrissur, Kerala, with a one-day history of dry cough and sore throat. It was later reported that the 20-year-old was a student studying in Wuhan University and had travelled to India.
The state has seen epidemics of dengue, chikungunya, Kyasanur forest disease, West Nile Fever, H1N1, Nipah, anthrax, coronavirus, prompting many to ask “why is the state turning out to be a hot spot of viral attacks?”
Viral outbreaks in Kerala
Kerala has witnessed multiple health scares with the outbreak of diseases such as Chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, Acute Encephalitis Syndrome, West Nile encephalitis, Dengue, Viral Hepatitis, Nipah, Swine Flu and COVID-19.
In recent times, the state has also seen cases of Zika virus as well as anthrax.
In September 2021, Kerala also saw a Nipah virus scare when a 12-year-old boy, who had contracted the disease, died in a private hospital in Kozhikode.
In fact, by sheer coincidence, Kerala had an outbreak of some of the pathogens the WHO, and coincidentally the Gates Foundation categorizes as potential pandemics.
Sadly India as with other countries doesn’t have widespread genomic sequence, so we need to wait to actually see if this is a new disease, just enhanced after-effects of other viral diseases, or a new variant of foot, and mouth disease. Whatever might be the case, what is happening at a global immune level in which so many old different diseases either surface again or suddenly “gain function” as MonkeyPox did.
In fact, besides writing about SARS-CoV-2, and other aspects of current global dynamics, I have been keeping an eye on other disease outbreaks for quite a long time, and as much as I have dug into the literature I can’t find similar events happening where simultaneous disease outbreaks happen, of multiple diseases, all the pathogens doing this so far never had this behavior before.
Source for the images below. In regards to the Langya Henipavirus outbreak in the piece above.
One superficial observation/speculation would be the reason so many “new diseases” are suffering breakthroughs is some simple, yet 3-fold:
SARS-CoV-2, and the vaccination efforts cause a global immunological shift, as Daoyu proposed when I started looking into this, causing reservoirs of latent viruses that would otherwise never “act up” begun creating symptomatic disease
The partial immune amnesia I proposed, which also works entangled with the above, and not merely alone
Or laboratories around the world have been messing with Gain of Function experiments for the last 2 decades, we had more leaks than one would be comfortable to state, and these pathogens that otherwise were not a problem, now are “gaining function” because of multiple dynamics the virus brings to the table.
All 3 can very much be true and work at the same time, with the known immune suppression of the virus being the first aggressor, what in medicine is usually called “Hit and Run effect”.
I don’t expect these outbreaks of “novel” diseases to be the end of it, nor that viruses will start losing function. I can’t pinpoint yet exactly which gene or what the virus (therefore the Spike) is flipping or messing with so the virus gain function in hosts so fast. Indeed it often looks like accelerated evolution is at play here.
Nutrient deficiency might also play a hand on these mechanisms, and so does all the drugs everyone is taking… a problem to work on I guess.
As a sarcastic finishing touch. Do the usual suspects have labs anywhere near Kerala ? Asking for a friend…
A very big thank you to all supporters here and those who use KoFi =) !
Gain of function labs nearby or possibly also nutritional deficiencies common to the area? Either could increase risk of any number of health problems.
Tomato flu. Really? lol