gorakhpur have become infamous for deaths happening every day (550 deaths this year since Jan 2013) due to japanese encephalitis and AES (Accute encephalitis syndrome) .the outer media does not know that JE deaths have reduced to below 4% of total AES/JE cases . mainly deaths are due to water borne . virus strains are as much as 165 but still only two have been identified by NIV . in the pictures above , first one is the family where last year one death of a child hapened . nearby are the waterlogged fields as shown . people are still using shallow handpump giving contaminated water . india marka II handpumps established by Jal Nigam are normally bored at shallow depths making no difference . people are forced to drink the contaminated water polluted by nearby river AAMI . which seeps to every village nearby during flood time . at the same time new handpumps proposals are given to well fed houses far from poor people as shown in last pic . this epidemic is from certain pockets . we need to find out those and focus on improving the sanitation , water problems of these ares after the monsoons rather than just only managing the patients at medical college , constructing new JE/AES wards .
this year most of the patients coming there are in serious condition and very late (because of time wasted in taking the patient from village to phc/chc , pvt hospital then to medical college ) where there is direat need of ventilator support , so there is very less to do . this puts a question over the existing PHC/CHC , there is no need of PHC rather a need of upgraded CHC where these patients can be treated or stablised before directly referring to terminal resort like medical college .
the doctors are having no idea about the virus , only symptomatic treatment is being done at the present time .
private hospitals when come to know about a patient about aes then they just want ot avoid as if any happens then there is public pressure that the medicine given by the doctor were ineffective and the doctors negligence was reson for death , incomplete treatment plus . only poors are coming . it is definitely related to socio economic condition of the people , very much affected by shallow hand pumps , after asking from patients , they were using shallow handpumps (india marka handpumps estb are also not good , some have been dug at 50 feet only giving contaminated water ) , and nearby ponds , resulting in increased infection
focus must be on prevention december afterwards like on sanitation(aes spread by feco – oral route ) and removing waterlogging , developing those pockets and seeing the result next year . harsh steps like digging out shallow handpumps is necessary now .