More than 150 children have died in Bihar due to encephalitis, which experts believe was caused by toxins in litchis.
Health News: A small red fruit grown in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and eaten widely across India is being linked to the deaths of at least 150 children in the north Indian state, triggering panic. According to reports, the presence of some toxins in the litchi, a fruit native to China, is believed to have caused encephalitis — inflammation of the brain — in around 200 children, 100 of whom are critical and are undergoing treatment. The outbreak of encephalitis takes place every year during the summer months in Bihar, the time the fruit is cultivated, but this year’s rising death toll has been alarming.
The deaths of children, almost all of them malnourished, have raised a larger question over how the fruit should be eaten and the ways in which it is harmful to the body.
The anatomy of the fruit
To understand the issue, one has to look at the composition of the fruit, which is divided into pulp and seed. The litchi seed was found to contain an unusual amino acid – called hypoglycin-A or methylene cyclopropyl glycine (MCPG) – which is a naturally-occurring fruit-based toxin, according to a 2017 study published in the Lancet Global Health medical journal conducted on the outbreak of acute toxic encephalopathy in Muzaffarpur.
Hypoglycin A or MCPG affects various processes of metabolism and the breakdown of glucose in the body, which may also lead to hypoglycemia, a condition where your blood sugar drops drastically, and encephalopathy.
The study also revealed that not just the seed, even the pulp was found to contain MCPG, which was later named hypoglycin-G.
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