A suspected attack of encephalitis is being blamed for the death of 24 children in less than two weeks in Bihar, raising concerns among doctors and health department officials. While the ailment’s causes remain yet to be ascertained, the authorities’ half-hearted handling of the worsening crisis has attracted criticism.
On Sunday, six freshly sick children below the age of six years were admitted at hospitals in Muzaffarpur, apparently Bihar’s perennial epicentre of encephalitis and brain malaria, adding to about 40 children already getting treatment there. In a single day on Saturday, eight sick children were reported to have died, spreading panic. Similar sickness in children has also been reported in Motihari.
While both the doctors at Muzaffarpur’s Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) and Bihar’s health department officials were unwilling to name the ailment encephalitis, the department dispatched 10,000 units of vaccines for Japanese encephalitis to SKMCH on Sunday. SKMCH paediatrics department head Dr Brij Mohan said efforts to determine the ailment’s causes had started. However, Dr V.V. Giri, superintendent of Muzaffarpur’s private Kejriwal hospital, said the ailment was very likely encephalitis.
A team of experts from Patna’s Indian Regional Medical Institute (IRMI) collected blood samples of the affected children in Muzaffarpur on Saturday to be sent to a specialised laboratory in Pune for examination.
But the samples are reportedly under risk of being rendered useless because the IRMI experts failed to ensure the required cold chain was maintained.