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43 Children Die of Encephalitis in Northern Indian State

Posted on: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

43 children die of encephalitis in northern Indian state

NEW DELHI, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- With seven encephalitis deaths being reported on Wednesday, totaling 43 children and three adults have died of the disease in the past three weeks in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the Indo-Asian News Service reports Wednesday.

The killer virus is likely to take a higher toll in the eastern part of the state, where the disease is prevalent, in the coming days as over 150 patients are struggling for survival there.

"The bulk of the rush is coming from rural pockets around Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Kushinagar and Deoria districts, besides villages along the marshy Indo-Nepal border," IANS quoted Uttar Pradesh Director General of Health, O.P.Singh as saying on Wednesday.

Two special wards have been created there to handle patients and everything is under control, Singh said.

"Come rains and the disease starts spreading like wildfire in several parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh," the faculty member of the Medical College here said.

He said that it has been 27 years since encephalitis was first detected in this region, but insufficient efforts have been made to contain it once and for all. Vaccination is the only solution to tackle the disease, but it is taken up only when there is a major outbreak and not as a preventive measure, he added.

Experts said that lack of proper sanitary system, a large number of piggeries and dairies are among the various factors behind the outbreak of the disease that is spread by mosquitoes.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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