Gorakhpur: Months after the Gorakhpur tragedy that stunned the nation, 58 infant deaths have been reported from the ill-fated Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College.
Confirming the deaths, Professor Dr DK Srivastava, Head of the department of Community Medicine Srivastava told ANI, “58 babies have died between November 1-4. 32 infants were younger than one month and 26 others were older than a month.”
The BRD medical college attracted global attention when more than 60 children, including infants, died at the hospital within a span of a week in August.
This year there have been a total of 1,317 deaths in the hospital so far, PTI had reported in early September.
According to hospital records, in January 152 children died, in February 122, March 159, April 123, May 139, June 137, July 128 and August 325, besides in September 32 children have died so far.
Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and Japanese Encephalitis (JE) have been creating havoc in eastern UP for years.
The most severely affected districts are Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Basti, Siddharthanagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Deoria and Mau.
As per the data on the website of the Directorate of National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), in 2010, UP reported 3540 cases of AES, which claimed 494 lives. JE saw 325 cases being reported in that year, and 59 lives were lost.
Similarly in 2011, 579 deaths in 3492 cases of AES were reported, while JE claimed 27 lives out of 224 cases.
In 2012, 3484 cases of AES were reported and 557 patients died, while 139 cases of JE and 23 deaths were also reported.
The AES death toll breached the 600 mark for the first time in 2013. 609 out of 3096 cases reported resulted in deaths. JE deaths too crossed the 40-figure-mark in the same year with 47 deaths reported in 281 cases.
In 2014, out of the 3329 AES cases reported, there were deaths, while for JE it was 34 deaths out of 191 cases.