India encephalitis outbreak kills 400, mainly children
15 Oct BBC
More than 400 people, mainly children, have died in an outbreak of
viral encephalitis in northern India, health officials say.
So far 2,300 patients have been admitted to a hospital in the
affected Gorakhpur area of Uttar Pradesh state.
A doctor told the BBC that it was a “tragedy beyond imagination”,
with children dying every day.
Nearly 6,000 children have died of encephalitis in the hospital since
the first case was detected in 1978.
Most of the deaths this year have happened since July, doctors say.
The disease occurs regularly during the monsoon in the Gorakhpur
region bordering Nepal in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The low-lying areas are prone to floods, providing a breeding ground
for mosquitoes which commonly transmit the virus.
‘Tragedy’ Doctors say affected patients come from 10-12 districts in
the region, and are mostly poor.
Until 2005, the majority of deaths were caused by Japanese
encephalitis, caused by a mosquito-borne virus, doctors say.
But in the past six years, children have been dying of other forms of
viral encephalitis, the exact cause of which is unclear.
One possibility is a water-borne virus present in contaminated water,
doctors say.
The diseases cause head aches and vomiting and can lead to comas,
brain dysfunctions, seizures and inflammations of the heart and kidney.
Doctors say children between the age of six months to 15 years are
worst affected and most of the victims are poor people from rural areas.
“It is unbelievable tragedy. There are five to 10 children dying
every day,” Dr KP Kushwaha, head of paediatrics at the BRD Medical
College, the only hospital treating patients, told the BBC.
Most of the 370 beds in the paediatrics and medicine departments at
the hospital are overflowing with more than one patient to a bed, he
said.
A fifth of the children who survive have to live with neurological
weaknesses, doctors say. “Children are most affected because they have
lower immunity and they end up consuming a lot of contaminated water at
home,” Dr Kushwaha said.
‘Shambles’ Though the incubation period of viral encephalitis is
between three and 30 days, patients are brought to the hospital from
far-flung areas because of the lack of adequate healthcare in their
villages. “The public health care system is in a shambles. And the
tragedy repeats every year,” said Kumar Harsh, a local journalist. The
government says it has tried to check the regular outbreak of the
encephalitis in the region.
Two massive vaccination drives against Japanese encephalitis were
carried out in Gorakhpur in 2006 and 2010, leading to a drastic decline
of the disease in the area. Also, people took precautions by using
mosquito nets and repellents.
But tackling other forms of viral encephalitis has proved to be
tougher challenge, and controlling it will also require a vast
improvement in sanitation and drinking water supply in rural areas,
health officials say.
The state government disbursed millions of rupees from a federal
health programme for treatment of patients at the state-run BRD Medical
College in 2009.
Part of this money was spent in hiring 135 researchers, doctors and
paramedical staff to beef up treatment. Most of the money ran out by
August, leaving only 36 of them receiving regular salaries, say
authorities.
The encephalitis outbreak in Gorakhpur has attracted national and
international attention - scientists from US-based Centers for Disease
Control visited the area in 2009, and took away medical samples to
examine the virus.
In 2005, a virulent outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in Gorakhpur
killed 1,000 people, mostly children. This was the worst outbreak since
1978. |