Japenese encephalitis

Filed in archive News on September 23, 2005

The outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in India was preventable with vaccination. However, the Indian government had other priorities:

India's government has promised to immunize every child in the worst-affected areas, but it's too late to save any lives this year.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by a deluge of sick children who sometimes lie two to a bed, and critics blame the situation on an underfunded medical system and wasteful projects. Uttar Pradesh, where the disease has killed 850 people in the last few months, has a health care budget of $24.2 million for 180 million people about 7 cents per person.

"Saving children's lives is not the government's priority," said Dr. T.N. Dhole, head of the microbiology department at the Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute in the state capital, Lucknow. "Deaths could have been prevented if the government had taken preventive steps and had inoculated the children."

Japanese encephalitis breaks out every year in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the region's main rice-growing area. It has a bowl-shaped geography that traps water, providing the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes that spread the incurable disease from pigs to humans. This year has been exceptionally rainy, leaving pools of water everywhere.

The state's health minister, Jaiveer Singh, said the government is working to obtain money for vaccines and is prepared to tap a discretionary fund to ensure children are immunized before the next rainy season.

But as images emerge of hundreds of children dying in filthy, understaffed and ill-equipped hospitals, some are asking why.

Critics point to millions spent on building parks and statues of Italian marble, noting the state recently gave former President Clinton a welcome costing $228,000. Last week's groundbreaking for a multimillion-dollar runway in the home village of the state's top leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, fueled more resentment.

(image via Yahoo! News)