Dhaka: Ten newborn babies have died mysteriously within 12 hours at a major state-run hospital in Bangladesh, prompting authorities to launch a probe into the incident.
"Five of the 10 babies were neonatal who were born only yesterday and the oldest among the children was a one and half year old child," an official of the Osmany Medical College and Hospital in northeastern Sylhet city said.
Deputy director of the facility Abdus Salam said the newborns apparently died of breathing problem, complexities during delivery and pneumonia. "But we formed a four-member committee with a senior professor to investigate into the deaths... they have been asked to submit their findings in next 24 hours," Salam said.
Panic-stricken patients and relatives of other children, who were being treated at the facility, sought to take their babies away after witnessing these deaths within hours, a local journalist said.
"People from the neighbourhood crowded the hospital area to know the details but the guardians of the under-aged patients are trying to secure release of their children out of fears about their fate," he said. Victims' families, meanwhile, blamed "doctors' negligence" for the deaths, TV reports showed.
Salam said the hospital generally witnesses deaths of three to four neonatal everyday due to different post-delivery complexities but admitted 'this time the number of deaths is unusual'.
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