214 Deaths Due To Acute Encephalitis Syndrome In Assam: Minister

As many as 214 deaths due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) were reported in Assam till July 18 this year, Minister of State for Health, Ashwini Kumar Choubey informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Responding to a question over what measures were initiated by the Centre to address the outbreak, the minister said central teams have visited Assam between June 30-July 1 and July 8-10 to review the situation and provide technical assistance to the state.

"The teams observed that Japanese Encephalitis (JE) transmission is going on in the state but at the same time transmission of other pathogens like scrub typhus, leptospirosis is also observed.

"The state health authorities have already taken large number of actions to tackle the problem. However, issues related to over suspicion of AES and over diagnosis of JE, testing algorithm, treatment protocol and vector management were observed and state and District Health Authorities were advised accordingly,"  Mr Choubey said in his reply.

Funds have been provided for strengthening of two Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) Departments in Assam's two districts, he said.

All 27 endemic districts have been covered under JE vaccination campaign as part of routine immunization (RI) while nine districts have been covered under adult JE vaccination and additional adult JE vaccination as a state initiative, he added. 

Meanwhile, the number of deaths due to Japanese Encephalitis in Assam since the beginning of this month rose to 110 with nine more deaths being reported in the last three days, according to a National Health Mission (NHM) bulletin in Guwahati on Tuesday.