Lucknow, August 18
The death toll in an encephalitis outbreak in Uttar Pradesh rose to 93 today with more deaths being reported due to the
water-born disease, a health official said.Most of the dead were children and more than 200 persons were in hospital, many of them in a critical condition.
“The death figure is likely to go up as more patients are coming in,” said K.P. Kushwaha, a health official in Gorakhpur.
He said nearly two dozen patients were being admitted to the main government hospital in Gorakhpur every day with symptoms of the disease, including fever, muscle ache and vomiting.
Meanwhile, the Congress today slammed the Uttar Pradesh Government for its alleged failure in dealing with encephalitis.
The party alleged that while the occurrence of the disease was an annual phenomenon,
the state government had failed to take effective steps to check its spread.
“So far not even a single minister of the state government has visited Gorakhpur where most of the patients are being treated. It is a shame that while the Governor took time to visit the area today, the Chief Minister has not even issued necessary directives,” UPCC chief spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh claimed here.
In the past 17 days, 93 out of 340 patients suffering from the disease have died while over 130 patients are still being
treated at the Gorakhpur Medical College.
Patients from Gorakhpur, Kushinagar,
Maharajganj, Siddharth Nagar, Basti and neighbouring districts of Bihar are being treated at the college. — Reuters, UNI
