-Newslaundry.com Affected families have much in common: low social status, low income, poor access to healthcare, and the non-existent reach of government schemes The countryside in Bihar’s north-western region of Tirhut is in full bloom at this time of the year. One is constantly in the vicinity of mango trees and litchi orchards and a good portion of agricultural land seems fallow. The sun is excessively punishing but it does little to...
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Dr. Arun Shah, a Muzaffarpur-based paediatrician, interviewed by Banjot Kaur (Down to Earth)
-Down to Earth Arun Shah, a Muzaffarpur-based paediatrician who has researched on the syndrome, says the fruit is only a triggering factor for malnourished children Litchi is being most commonly blamed for the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) outbreak in Bihar. The mystery fever has already killed more than 100 children in Muzaffarpur district, renowned for its litchi crop. However, experts say it is grossly wrong to blame this fruit Down To Earth spoke...
More »Stopping Muzaffarpur Child Deaths Will Require a Gender-Sensitive Social Analysis -Purnima Menon
-TheWire.in Due to its social determinants of malnutrition, Muzaffarpur offers a case study of a “perfect storm” of risk factors. Muzaffarpur is emblematic of a hot spot for undernutrition in India. With one in two children stunted, Muzaffarpur lags India’s average by ten percentage points. One in two women is anaemic and one in three is underweight. Although most infants are breastfed and exclusive breastfeeding is high, other aspects of infant diets...
More »Averting deaths in Muzaffarpur -T Jacob John
-The Hindu All it would have taken was to ensure that the children had a meal at night Along with my colleagues, I had investigated the so-called mystery disease in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, during its outbreak in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The local name for it was acute encephalitis syndrome, but we found that the disease was not encephalitis but encephalopathy. This distinction is important. Encephalitis results from a viral infection, unless proved...
More »Anaemia is a public health emergency that needs to be addressed immediately -Alok Kumar & Vedeika Shekhar
-The Indian Express Fortifying staples with essential nutrients holds the key in fight against anaemia. The daily consumption of iron rich dark green leafy vegetables has reduced from 64 per cent to 48 per cent of the population in the last decade. India has been able to dramatically reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty from 306 million people living on less than $1.90 (on a PPP basis) a...
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