In a major relief in Uttar Pradesh, deaths due to the deadly epidemic of Encephalitis dropped down by 66 per cent in the 14 most-affected East Uttar Pradesh districts in 2018 from 2017 when this had become a topic for cornering the state Government.
Sidharth Nath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Health Minister informed the state assembly in a written answer on Monday that 187 people died due to encephalitis in 2018 against 553 such deaths in 2017. The number of encephalitis cases reported in 14 districts of Eastern UP also dropped from 3817 in year 2017 to 2043 cases last year. This also shows that the doctors were able to save higher number of patients out of total number of patients admitted; while every seventh patient admitted for encephalitis died during treatment in 2017, the casualty rate dipped to every 11th patient last year. In 2019, so far till February 11, no person has died due to encephalitis out of the 35 reported cases so far, the Minister informed the state assembly.
Due to alleged lack of oxygen at Gorakhpur’s BRD Hospital in August 2017, deaths of a number of children had created a political furore, leading to criminal cases being lodged by the government against doctors and administrators. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had also launched the ‘Dastak’ campaign against Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in collaboration with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). While a big vaccination drive was launched for JE, a massive sanitation and information campaign was launched this year to check cases of AES, which has no vaccine.
The steps by Uttar Pradesh government which has been working on all this to fight AES
and which proved effective in getting the positive results in controlling these two epidemics were: early vaccination, segregating pigs from affected habitation, immediate response teams for fogging to stop outbreak, convincing parents to not let their kids sleep on the mud floor, drink water from a ‘India Mark-2’ tap or hand pump, and calling the 108 ambulance helpline immediately if they find any symptoms.
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