-The Times of India GORAKHPUR (Uttar Pradesh): At least 30 children died in the state-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College here during the last 48 hours, district magistrate Rajeev Rautela said on Friday, but gave no reasons for such a large number of deaths. Rautela was quoted by PTI as saying that 17 children died in the neo-natal ward, five in the AES (acute Encephalitis syndrome) ward and eight in the...

-DNA Of 132 AEFI cases, only 78 babies survived and 54 died, a Union Health Ministry report says A string of deaths has put a question mark on the safety of India's child vaccination programme. And the central government seems to be washing its hands of these post-vaccination casualties. In December last year, 45-day-old baby girl Aarohi Bajgude died in Maharashtra's Beed district, three hours after receiving the dose of Pentavalent vaccine....

-Down to Earth The study establishes relation between litchi consumption and Encephalitis after conducting a hospital-based surveillance on 390 patients A recent study has linked occurrence of neurological disease—commonly known as Encephalitis—to consumption of litchi in Muzaffarpur district in Bihar. Published in Lancet on March 31, the study recommends minimising Litchi consumption and also ensuring that the evening meal is not skipped as the latter modifies the effect of eating litchis on...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The mystery behind the outbreak of an unexplained neurological illness in Bihar's Muzaffarpur, which had claimed nearly 100 lives each year till 2014, has been solved. Scientists from the US and India, after a joint investigation, have concluded that consuming litchi --a tropical fruit Muzaffarpur is famous for- on an empty stomach triggers the illness and death. Seasonal outbreak of the mysterious illness, characterised by acute...

-Scroll.in Health activists say the government is using the report to divert attention from its failures. Ninety seven children have died in the district hospital of Malkangiri in southern Odisha since September. Based on the clinical symptoms of high fever and seizures, doctors suspected the children had died of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome, or brain inflammation, caused by the Japanese Encephalitis virus. Acute Encephalitis Syndrome is a group of conditions that affect the brain...