Encephalitis has been a major killer. The epidemic needs action on a war footing
Rapid denial by the Uttar Pradesh administration aside, it is quite clear that several children died due to avoidable reasons in Gorakhpur. The failure of the hospital management to clear outstanding bills of the oxygen supplier is one of the main reason. There is a persistent problem that several Government agencies have with clearing dues, which impacts the livelihoods of millions of people. But in this case, the apparent lackadaisical nature of the health department of the Uttar Pradesh Government in clearing pending amount turned out to be fatal. The health department of the State Government must introspect and take action against officials, and if it is indeed true that bribes were demanded for the payment of legitimate dues, then criminal action has to be initiated. It will be tragic if petty corruption turned out to be fatal for any life, let alone those of innocent children because of lack of oxygen. losing a child to a horrible disease is one thing but to lose a child due to criminal negligence is something else altogether. There have been allegations and counter-allegations about the high rates of child mortality owing to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) this year. But the fact is that this part of northern Purvanchal has endemic Encephalitis, that is brain fever, for decades. Statistics, usually buried deep in vaults and rarely noticed by the national media show that thousands of children have fallen prey to JE at the Government-run BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur alone. The number of JE-related death of young children, who never received medical attention, and who often fall off official statistics, could be in tens and thousands. The vector-borne disease tends to afflict children much worse than adults and strangely rarely spreads beyond rural areas, particularly in swampy, marshy areas. However, this disease is eminently avoidable because there has been preventative vaccine available.
Much like the dedicated effort to eradicate Polio, where the Health Ministry played a major role alongside non-governmental organisations to promote vaccination, a concerted effort has to be made towards first reducing and then eradicating the scourge of JE from this region. Much like young children are given doses for Polio, children should be given this vaccine to prevent JE. There has been a concentrated effort by several States in the country, such as in Delhi, to reduce the impact of vector-borne diseases this year. However, in a tropical country like India, particularly in impoverished areas, it is impossible to prevent the spread of mosquitoes and the sand-fly that spreads the dreaded kala azar (black fever). With malaria also making a comeback, overall central and State health policy has to be tailored to combat this, and India’s lack of investment in healthcare based research and development is a another problem that needs to be recognised. Western companies are pouring in billions of dollars into cancer research and even diabetes. But because these diseases impact people far away, the Western pharmaceutical majors put little or no investment into them. And profit-oriented Western companies will not research into them and that is why governmental intervention is required. Of course, it would help if Governments start paying their dues on time in the first place.