Source: indiatimes.com
The death toll due to the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome outbreak in Bihar has reached 100 and despite claims made by state government, the number of deaths are increasing with more and more infected children rushing to the hospitals.
Muzzafurpur district is mainly affected by the outbreak and 83 children have succumbed to Encephalitis at Sri Krishna Medical College while 17 died at Kejriwal hospital. The union health minister Harsh Vardhan visited the Muzaffarpur yesterday and took stock of the situation. Different media reports said that the minister was shown black flags. However, the minister said he has spoken to “every concerned individual about this issue”.
The situation turned grim when a five year od child while three minsiters around and this enraged the anger of the parents of the children and they confronted the ministers. Vardhan, however, later held a meeting and assured a research that would be undertaken to ascertain the cause of the disease to order any such outbreak in future. He was quoted News18.
“I assure the people of the area, especially the affected families, that the government will extend all possible help and measures to the state government,” Vardhan said.
Despite all problems and considering the seriousness of this disease, I appreciate the efforts put in by the doctors to ensure efficient treatment to everyone,” he added.
Nitish Kumar, the CM had also expressed grief over the deaths of the children and announced “an ex gratia payment of Rs. 4 lakh to the next of the kin of those who have died”. The lack of awareness about his to tackle the decease is also the reason for outbreak, the CM said.
The health department of the state has cited hypoglycaemia in which the blood sugar level go down as the main reason behind the deaths of the children. Acute Encephalitis Syndrome is a viral diseases that has symptoms like high fever, convulsions and headaches.