New Delhi: As the death toll due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in Muzaffarpur district crossed the 100 mark on Monday, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has summoned the Bihar government and Union Health Ministry over the rising deaths and sought a detailed report in the matter.
Meanwhile, Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey, who had once hit the headlines for appointing a dead doctor to head a district hospital in June last year, faced the fury of affected families over asking the cricket score during a crucial meeting on the outbreak of AES in the state in the presence of Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in Muzaffarpur on Sunday.
In the alleged video, Pandey is heard asking "how many wickets have fallen?" to which someone responds "4 wickets". India was playing Pakistan in a World Cup tournament late Sunday evening.
Coming to the NHRC notice, the panel has also sought a detailed report on the status of implementation of National Programme for Prevention and Control of Japanese Encephalitis Virus/Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (NPPCJA) and other steps taken to deal with the painful situation. The panel has given four-week time to submit the sought details.
In a related development, the Centre in response to an RTI reply has stated that the occurrence of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) was observed for the first time in 1955 at Vellore in Tamil Nadu and the government has spent several crores of rupees to contain the deadly disease, which has claimed the lives of over 7,500 children since 2009.
As per the RTI, there were 779 deaths reported in 2009, while in 2010, 679 deaths were reported due to JE. Similarly, in 2011, 1,169 children died due to 'brain fever' followed by 1,256 deaths in 2012, then 1,273 deaths in 2013 and 1,711 deaths in 2014.
Though there is no provision of providing compensation to the affected families from the Centre, the Bihar government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh for each of the children killed in the outbreak. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has also directed officials of the Health Department, the district administration and doctors to take all possible measures to tackle the situation.