AsiaCalling

Download More than 400 people, mainly children, have died in an outbreak of viral encephalitis in northern India.

This “brain fever” is a mosquito-borne virus that affects the central nervous system, leading to death in almost 30 percent of the cases.

The disease occurs regularly during the monsoon, in the Gorakhpur region bordering Nepal, but this year it has been more severe.

Indian correspondent Bismillah Geelani reports that many blame the government for being slow to react.

Another death from Encephalitis is announced at Gorakhpur’s government hospital.

This time it’s 10-year old Ayush.

A group of mourning women rush to the hospital reception to receive his body.

Amongst them is Rukmini, the grandmother.

“Initially he had a mild fever. The fever would go down and come back again. Sometimes he looked quite well. But then he started vomiting and his face also swelled. We went to some local doctors but they couldn’t cure him and then we brought him here.”

But it was too late.

This is the second death from the virus in this hospital in just 40 minutes.

Raghuram is here with his sick child. He says, nearly half of the children brought here don’t return home alive.

“At least 17 children have died in the last 12 hours alone. About 60 more have been brought here today and almost all of them are in a critical condition. But they don’t get proper care because there is an acute shortage of doctors and nurses and the beds are also not available.”

And there is no specific cure for Encephalitis.

Uttar Pradesh state had its first outbreak of the disease in 1978 and since then it has been claiming hundreds of lives every year.

Most of the victims are children aged 6 months to 12 years old. Nearly half of those who survive are not able to live a normal life again.

Dr. Pitu Dhularia is director of public health at One World Health New Delhi.

“35 percent of the affected people survive with a permanent disability like loss of hearing, loss of vision, loss of memory or there can be paralysis of any part of the body. So the survival rate without any disability is only 30 percent.”

But a vaccine is available.

In 2006 the government launched a large-scale immunization campaign to control the disease, but it was poorly supplied. Another vaccination drive in 2010 also met the same fate.

One World Health’s Dr, Dhularia blames red tape and lack of storage facilities for the failure.

“We know that the manufacturer in China needs a lead time of six months to prepare the vaccine. The procedure starts very late, the approvals take a lot of time and by the time the vaccine reaches India, it’s already late. The life of the vaccine is about 18 months, we already lose six months in the process and then we always struggle with cold chain because this vaccine has to be kept in the cold chain and if the cold chain is not maintained properly, the time league to use the vaccine is again reduced.”

The provincial government and the national government are blaming each other for the disease’s outbreak.

Oscar Fernades is spokesperson with Congress party heading the central government.

“It’s a matter of grave concern for all of us. The centre will respond but the question is it’s a state subject. Whatever the state wants the centre will definitely give, but ultimately the implementation is the responsibility of the state government.”

Local pediatrician MD Agawal says the government is turning a blind eye to the plight of the region.

“There can’t be any greater negligence than this. It’s cruel. It’s not a city like Delhi or Banglore and the people are not those who can travel by air and have influence with the big politicians. They are poor farmers, Dalits and other backward people so both the state government and the central government has decided not to care.”

Experts say massive water logging and poor sanitation facilities in the flood prone region provide an ideal breeding ground for the mosquito disease’s growth.

The Commission for the Protection of Child Rights is urging the government to come up with a health plan for the district.

Shanta Sinha is the Commission’s chairperson.

“There seems to be a collapse of the health system and collapse of water and sanitation mechanism and this has to be dealt with on a war footing. It’s an emergency and cannot be repeated again and again.”