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Encephalitis claims 17 lives in eastern UP

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Seventeen children have died while 78 remain hospitalised after Japanese encephalitis hit parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh in an epidemic form over the past ten days.

The affected districts are Maharajganj, Siddharthnagar, Sant Kabirnagar, Kushinagar and Deoria. Patients are pouring in every day at the Gorakhpur Medical College, the only specialised medical care centre in the region.

According to UP's principal medical and health secretary Naresh Dayal, "Though there had been an appreciable fall in the incidence of encephalitis, the problem remained becomes acute during the monsoon, between August and October."

"The worst-affected were Kushinagar and Maharajganj districts, bordering Nepal, where the mosquito menace was really acute," he said.

Alarmed by the situation, the state government has rushed a team led by UP's additional director (malaria) Dr G K Agarwal to the affected districts to take stock of the situation. Arrangements are being made to equip the Gorakhpur Medical College to be able to carry out preventive measures in the vast rural expanse of eastern UP, where the disease had become a perennial feature.

According to a study carried out by the Sanjay Gandhi Post graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, the spread of encephalitis coincides with the planting of paddy and breeding of pigs. These create an ideal environment for breeding of mosquitoes, which are the main carriers of the deadly virus.

Dr U K Misra, head of the institute's neurology department, who has been deeply involved in research on this disease, said, "The virus usually breeds in the pig's body from where it is carried into human beings. Children are most vulnerable. Convulsions, high fever, severe headache, stiffness of the neck combined with vomiting are the common symptoms."

Last year's toll was the heaviest in recent years. "As against 17 deaths so far this year, as many as 42 persons out of 263 encephalitis cases reported during the corresponding period in 1999 had died," Dayal said.

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