Even as the threat of encephalitis looms large over Uttar Pradesh with experts predicting it to be deadliest this time in comparison to last three years, the state government’s much hyped vaccination drive to save kids from Japanese encephalitis is still under cloud and is mired by confusion.
In Government no one has the clear idea as what is happening in vaccination field. Chief Secretary Jawed Usmani had asked health officials to complete vaccination in encephalitis prone area by August.
The Health Minister Ahmad Hasan said that officials are working on the plan to vaccinate children up to 15 years of age. “The Government will ensure that each and every child up to 15 years get proper vaccine in the encephalitis prone region,” he said in a politically loaded statement.
The ground reality is however different. When The Pioneer contacted D-G Health Dr D.K. Srivastava he said he does not deal with this immunization programme. “The D-G (Family welfare) is the right man to give the answer to the query as when immunization drive will start,” he said.
The D-G (Family welfare) Dr Ved Prakash Gupta pushed the blame to Dr Drivastava. “It is DG (Health) who monitors the immunization
programme. My department only supplies vaccines. Dr Gupta should have the information about immunsation at the ground level,” he told The Poneer.
In this allegations and counter-allegations it is the children who suffer. “To the best of my knowledge the vaccination drive is yet to take off in eastern Uttar Pradesh,” Dr. R.N. Singh, Chief Convene of the Encephalitis Eradication Movement, an NGO said. “While India’s efforts against polio and tuberculosis get plenty of attention, the poor farmers and day laborers of eastern Uttar Pradesh
state face an almost-silent emergency, battling a disease that has killed thousands of children over the past eight years,” Dr Singh said.
The disease is predictable and preventable. The annual monsoon fills parched paddy fields, which bear the mosquitoes that spread Japanese encephalitis from pigs to humans, devastating malnourished children with low immunity. Another strain of the disease — acute encephalitis syndrome — spreads through contaminated water. Residents defecate in the fields, contaminating the ground water. A vaccine has long been available, but the state government — which
spent tens of crores of rupees building monuments — has failed to muster the sustained political will to focus on the communities hardest hit by the illness.
The disease killed more than 1,500 children in 2005, the worst recent year, In 2006 a vaccination drive was launched. The government vowed to immunize every child in the worst-affected areas and to launch a massive drive to improve sanitation. For a couple of years, the numbers dropped. In 2006, the disease killed 431 children.
But the crowded hospital wards of the tiny town of Gorakhpur reflect how the immunization drive has fizzled. last year, more than 700 children died.
Health experts say the government has made repeated mistakes in the fight against encephalitis. Most of the 7.5 million children vaccinated between 2006 and 2010 were given only a single dose of a two-dose vaccine, said Singh, of the Encephalitis Eradication Movement.
“Who is responsible for the children who died between 2006 and 2010IJ” Singh asked. In 2010 the vaccination drive was stopped because funds dried up. The
sanitation drive never fully started. The Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur is is the only hospital in Uttar Pradesh equipped to deal with encephalitis patients.
According to hospital data, 5,136 children with encephalitis died in its wards between 2005 and 2012. This year, 118 children had died by the end of May. The figures don’t include children treated at private clinics or those who never made it to medical care.