Seven new cases of a very rare form conjunctivitis disease have been reported at a city hospital in Chennai with the hospital ophthalmologists warning that this could be a start of a fresh outbreak.

The disease, called microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis, was first detected more than 35 years ago and less than 100 cases have been confirmed across the globe, though more than 60 percent of the patients were from Orissa.

Microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis is more severe than ordinary conjunctivitis and could lead to total blindness in 20 percent of the cases. The outbreak of the disease was confirmed at the Vasan Eye Care Hospital when a woman who had earlier been diagnosed with conjunctivitis reported loose bowel movement and the redness of the eye had not reduced for more than a week.

Microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis was confirmed after the doctors conducted an eye smear test with six more patients testing positive for the disease in the next two weeks.

Source-Medindia
RAS/SK