The volunteers of the National Encephalitis Eradication Campaign have threatened to write letters in their blood and send the same to Prime Minister if encephalitis was not brought under national campaign by January.
Chief Campaigner of the NEEP Dr R.N.Singh said that encephalitis is the scourge of eastern Uttar Pradesh where almost 600 to 800 children die every year. “This fact is known to everyone still no attempt is being made to save these children,” he said on Thursday.
“Even the High Court in 2005 had asked the state and central governments to treat this disease as national calamity as it is taking lives of innocent children with profound regularity,” he said. “With no option left the volunteers of NEEP have decided to write letter in blood and send the same to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav demanding that encephalitis should be brought under national campaign like polio,” 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.
Children up to 15 years fall prey to this dreaded disease. The fatality rate is as high as 30 per cent and another 30 per cent, who survive, live a life of a disabled person. Only 40 per cent of the affected children come out victorious.
Gorakhpur is the nerve centre of this dreaded disease. Children from the nearby districts including Bihar are brought to the BRD Medical College for treatment. The hospital has so far registered 550 deaths this year from this college only. “The number would be much more. We do not have figures as how many children have died in private hospitals and in nearby hospitals. Many others must have died without treatment,” Dr Singh said.
He said over 10,000 children die of this disease across the state and this number is going up. “This is a fallacy that Health Department runs national campaign for diseases like falaria and goiter where fatality is almost negligible. But where children are dying almost every year the government is feeling shy to declare encephalitis as a national catastrophe,” he said.