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Cyclical Season of Death
- Hundreds of children die from Japanese encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh as the centre and the state play the blame game.
- Since 2005, in an annual macabre ritual acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) claims hundreds of lives in Uttar Pradesh.
- Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the leading viral cause of AES – primarily affects those under 15, a majority of the deaths are of children.
- According to official estimates, the deaths due to je were 645 in 2007, 537 in 2008 and 556 in 2009.
- A majority of the survivors face long-term neurological disability
- The disease claims victims in the neighbouring states too, notably Bihar and Assam, but the numbers are nowhere near those in UP.
- The Allahabad High Court also intervened recently by directing that a meeting of experts be held to provide solutions.
- According to the World Health Organisation, JE is a mosquito-borne viral encephalitis that is maintained in a cycle of virus transmission between vertebrate amplifying hosts (pigs, herons, egrets) and several Culex mosquito species. The greatest transmission to humans occurs in rural settings, particularly those in which agricultural practices increase the potential for breeding of vectors or infection of vertebrate hosts.
- The most promising preventive tool is the JE vaccine (for the AES, however, symptomatic treatment is the only option). Vaccination campaigns are being carried out in eastern UP and the neighbouring districts of Bihar since 2006.
- There is no doubt that poor sanitation and lack of potable water supply are the main causes of the outbreak. Hygiene awareness lessons can have little meaning in areas where families living in grinding poverty depend on contaminated sources of drinking water.
- In 2008, the UP government said that 6 lakh doses of encephalitis vaccine sent by the centre for the routine immunisation programme had been exposed to heat and were hence unusable. The following year it refused 16 lakh doses on grounds of inefficacy. While the state administration blames the centre for not sending enough vaccines, the latter says that whatever is sent is not used in time.
- Doctors in the area have been demanding a National Encephalitis Eradication Programme which will treat the disease as a national health emergency and also help in the rehabilitation of survivors.
