ICMR and AIIMS collect samples to investigate the extreme hair loss condition in Maharashtra’s Buldhana

Mysterious hair loss outbreak in Maharashtra's Budhana district baffles experts, affecting over 190 people in 12 villages.

Over 190 people from 12 villages of Shegaon taluka in Maharashtra’s Budhana district are gripped with a strange kind of hair loss condition that has resulted in baldness among children, men and women starting from the age of 4.

Experts from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the scientific term for this condition is anagen effluvium, a type of hair loss that occurs when hair in the growth phase is damaged. It’s a non-scarring form of alopecia.   

Dr. Manoj Vasant Murhekar, Scientist and Director, ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai who has been visiting the villages for the past four days, said that a team from ICMR and All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi have completed sample collection work on Friday (January 17, 2025) and they will be sent to ICMR- National Institute for Research in Environmental Health (NIREH) lab in Bhopal and AIIMS Delhi. “It will take two weeks’ time for the reports to come.” 

Samples are collected from over 155 people from all age groups, he said. “The tests done for fungal infection at the local medical college were negative. The dermatology teams from ICMR and AIIMS have collected samples of hair, blood, urine, water, biopsy, environmental and biological samples in the last four days. We have also taken a biopsy sample from the scalp of patients,” Dr. Murhekar said.   

The patients neither have any common symptoms nor are they suffering from any health concerns such as fever or diarrhoea. They do not even use many products like shampoos or conditioners.  

Three weeks ago, when extreme hair loss started to become common among many people, the villagers started calling the condition ‘baldness virus’.