Muzaffarpur: The stench of urine, chlorine, vomit and death fills the main hospital in Muzaffarpur, the epicentre of a brain fever outbreak in India that has killed over 100 children since June 1.
Doctors are not sure what the cause is, but one theory is that the culprit is a toxin found in lychees eaten by children of poor families who go to bed with empty stomachs.
One of the distraught parents crowding the chaotic corridors of the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) is Dilip Sahni, 25, a construction worker and father of three.
He brought his daughter Muskan, aged four-and-a-half, to the SKMCH early in the morning, only 24 hours after she fell ill.
There almost 100 other children are being treated, many sharing beds.
“When her mother went in to wake her yesterday at 11 am, she was shocked to see her hands and legs tightened and her teeth sticking together,” Sahni said. “Her mother started screaming for help, and we rushed her to the Kejriwal hospital. At midnight the hospital doctors told us to take her to SKMCH,” he said.
“Early morning we shifted her here but her condition has been deteriorating,” Sahni said before breaking down.
Not long afterwards came the news that little Muskan had died.
She was very likely just the latest victim in a health crisis blamed on Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in the dirt-poor, baking hot eastern state of Bihar.
The onset is lightning fast, its young victims quickly developing a high fever, seizures, and vomiting. All often, if treatment is not swift, leading to death.
A total of 118 children have died so far this month, authorities said on Wednesday.
“Obviously it is tough to make ends meet and raise three children. But I try my best. She was a healthy and playful child,” Sahni had said when he had brought his daughter in. “The night before she had eaten bread, she did not have any lychees. It was 10 days ago she had the fruit,” he said.
As the hospital guards scream at parents not to crowd the wards, Raju Kumar, 35, a father of five, has just admitted his two-and-half-year-old son to the intensive care unit. — AFP
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