UPDATE: Encephalitis in India's Children -- Death Toll Now Over 500

(Per Fred's request, the title has been updated... death toll now stands at over 500. -- Byrd)

At least 79 children have died in Inda adn over 182 are hospitalized with Japanese encephalitis. Transmitted by mosquito's, the disease causes seizures and high fevers. As the article points out this is just the stats from government run hospitals and does not include those who have died in villages or private hospitals etc. This is alot of kids in one area in a short period of time.

LUCKNOW, India - An outbreak of mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis has killed at least 79 children in a north Indian state over the past week, with dozens of other children in serious condition, officials said Thursday.

Local newspapers reported that the death toll could be much higher, as many casualties were going unreported.

"The government is talking about the death of children in government hospitals. What about the children who died in private nursing homes or in villages without medicines?" asked Dr. Radha Mohan Agarwal, an opposition lawmaker and a leading pediatrician in Gorakhpur, the largest city in the worst-affected eastern flank of Uttar Pradesh state.
Ence phalitis

[edit on 7-9-2005 by Byrd]

Encephalitis outbreak toll at 456

The latest 16 deaths were reported from the previously-unaffected districts of Unnao and Balrampur of Uttar Pradesh state, where hospitals were treating more than 1,500 patients, said provincial health chief OP Singh.
The worst-hit district of Gorakhpur near Nepal's border has reported 392 deaths since late July, when encephalitis hit Uttar Pradesh, Singh said in the state capital, Lucknow, adding that children were the main victims.

He said the latest casualties suggested the disease, which is transmitted through mosquito bites, had spread to 25 of the state's 70 districts.

The state's chief microbiologist, TN Dhole, who returned today after leading a scientists' team to Gorakhpur, painted a bleak picture of the situation in the remote area 250 km south-east of Lucknow.

"It is catastrophic," he said. "The toll must be much, much higher because the government is only taking into account the deaths reported in state-run hospitals.

news.com.au

Are there any members based in India, who know about this?

Sanc'.

Christ that two weeks and its up to 456 and as the intial article pointed out thats just the government stats and does not really include rural deaths in villages or private hospitals.

Good find Sanc

[edit on 9/4/05 by FredT]

LUCKNOW, India (AFP) - The official death toll from Japanese encephalitis passed 500 in northern India where more than 2,000 children were fighting for their lives against the mosquito-borne disease.

All but three of the dead were children, according to official figures.

At least 40 more deaths were reported in the past 24 hours in Uttar Pradesh adding to a previous toll of 468, health officials said on Wednesday
Death Toll Now Over 500

This is the part I find Chilling

"We are collecting figures from various agencies in the field and our estimate is that between 1,000 and 1,500 children are dead," she told AFP.

[edit on 9/7/05 by FredT]

The offical death toll is now over 1100 :shk: and could have been prevented by a cheap $1 vaccine

KUSHINAGAR, India - When Nand Kishore Sharma learns that his 7-year-old daughter could have been saved from her painful death by a $1 vaccine, he just shrugs. People in this remote, impoverished corner of India are used to being overlooked.

The Sharmas are victims of the worst Japanese encephalitis outbreak in recent memory. More than 1,100 people — most of them children — have died in India's Uttar Pradesh state and neighboring Nepal.
Vacci ne needed