156 dead as encephalitis spreads in northern India

An outbreak of Japanese encephalitis has spread to new areas of northern India, officials said today, as 20 additional deaths pushed the toll from the mosquito-borne disease to 156 fatalities in two weeks.

Nearly 500 infected people, mostly children, remain in hospitals across Uttar Pradesh state, with 68 new patients admitted in the past day to the main hospital in the Gorakhpur district, the hardest hit area, said SP Tripathi, a doctor at the hospital.

Seventeen of the new deaths, including three adults, occurred in Gorakhpur, 165 miles east of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, Tripathi said.

In Lucknow’s King George’s Medical College hospital, 24 new encephalitis patients were admitted, said a doctor. Fifty-two children were already being treated there for the disease.

OP Singh, the state’s top health official, said the disease was initially confined to Gorakhpur and other eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh, but cases were being reported from other areas of the state.

Several districts in the impoverished state are prone to the disease, which causes high fever, vomiting and, ultimately, can leave patients comatose.

The disease is preventable by vaccination, but health authorities in the state say there isn’t enough money to immunise the children.

The state has sought help of Unicef and the World Health Organisation to tackle the situation.

According to official estimates, about 3,500 people have died of encephalitis in the state over the past 25 years.