Four months left and it’s time to prevent the same happening in 2020

Nearly half of the children who died due to acute encephalitis syndrome in Muzaffarpur, Bihar in mid-2019 had no history of litchi consumption. A majority of the rest was aged less than 2 years and was not quite able to eat the fruit.

ICMR now has ordered for  investigations to determine the cause of the sudden rise in deaths due to acute encephalitis syndrome in Bihar last year.

The council will now study, in April-May at the onset of summers, the further possibilities.

In 2019, we had 125 deaths and more than 550 cases of AES.

Possible causes

1. Infective: Viral encephalitis, Cerebral malaria, scrub typhus
2. Non-infective: malnutrition, refeeding syndrome (hypocalcemia, hypoglycemia, Hypophosphatemia and hypokalemia), poor health infrastructure

In Muzaffarpur, 48% of children under the age of five are stunted, 17.5% are wasted, and 42% are underweight.

Dr KK Aggarwal

President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA