More children were admitted to Malda Medical College and Hospital with “litchi syndrome“, bringing the total number of afflicted to 37. The report of blood and cerebral spinal fluid, which reached Malda on Thursday , however, confirmed that the victims had no traces of dengue, chikungunya or Japanese encephalitis. Experts said that not a single victim was from anywhere in Bengal apart from the plantation zone in Malda, although a bumper harvest this season had flooded markets. Scientists continued to probe the cause of the deaths. But, confusion deepened with no trace of virus found in the victims' medical reports. State virologists seemed to toe the government line a day after minister Chandrima Bhattacharya blamed a toxin in green litchi that triggers hypoglycemia -an abnormal dip in blood sugar. Farmers, however, rejected the logic. Md Ismail, a litchi farmer at Kaliachak, said, “The minister warned us against having unripe litchi. But how can we get green litchi at this point of the season when total production will be over in a few days?“ “I've seen the media reports on green litchi. It is an agricultural and toxicology matter. There is a toxin, Hypoglycin A, in green litchi, but there is no conclusive proof that it is the cause,“ said Dr Nimai Bhattacharya, head of the virology department at Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine. He added: “It is unfair to incriminate litchis at this stage. Several people have carried it to places. The investigation must be complete before drawing any conclusion. Even government bodies have stressed that there is no need to panic.“ Dr Sekhar Chakrabarti, officer-in-charge of ICMR's virus unit and director-in-charge of NICED said, “There is no litchi virus.“ America's Centre of Disease Control (CDC) had in an earlier report probed litchi-associated acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) in children following similar incidents in the litchi-rich Bac Giang province in Vietnam. Virus transmission ways could be direct contact with litchis contaminated by bat saliva, urine, or guano or with other vectors, such as insects on litchi trees, it noted. Bhattacharya did not discard this possibility. Government officials, though, maintained there was no reason to stop having litchi and appealed to citizens to not spread panic.