Lucknow, Oct 7 (IANS) The number of victims of a mysterious disease in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district has mounted to 12, with five more people succumbing since Monday, officials said Tuesday.The disease, marked with vomiting and high fever, claimed lives in Rudrapur, Saanda and Thangaon villages of Sitapur, 80 km from Lucknow. Several villagers have also been hospitalised.

“We are yet to identify the mysterious disease which is fast spreading in the villages of the district,” Sitapur chief medical officer (CMO) R.K. Singh told IANS.

Initially, the deaths were reported from Manpur and Bhudvapur villages of the district.

Singh said that with the spread of the disease to other villages, special medical teams have been constituted to contain it.

Even as the CMO claimed that doctors along with paramedical staff have been deployed in the medical camps in affected villages, the locals say no such arrangements have been made.

“Not a single camp has been organised in our village where two people have already died of the mysterious disease,” Saanda village head R. Ansari told IANS over phone.

Another local of Rudrapur village, Meenu Awasthi said: “Every time we go to the doctors, they say a door-to-door campaign will start soon to control the infection”.

However, even after 12 deaths in the district, necessary action from the medical authorities is awaited, Awasthi added.