A Study of an Epidemic of Acute Respiratory Disease in Jaipur Town

AIM: To detect an association between the sudden epidemic with respiratory symptoms, and fogging with dichlorovos in Jaipur town and to find out probable mechanism of causation of the epidemic. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: in this Community based study of the epidemic, house-to-house survey of households selected using systematic random sampling was carried out. The incidence in the exposed and unexposed population, the relative risk and attributable risk were calculated. RESULTS: The incidence of cases was high (58.9%) in subjects present on roads at the time of fogging as compared to in those who were inside rooms of the houses (5.4%) and in those who were not in the locality at that time (1.8%) [Relative Risk (RR)=32.7 and Attributable Risk (AR)=96.9%]. CONCLUSION: High RR and AR in the present epidemic indicate strong association between fogging and occurrence of symptoms. In absence of signs and symptoms of organophosphorus poisoning it suggests that this could have been due to an inappropriate solvent or defective functioning of fog generator, leading to generation of an unusual dark fog, that might have irritated eyes and respiratory tract of exposed residents.