Govt plans encephalitis vaccination for adults

SNS, Siliguri, 27 July 2014: The state health department has planned to approach the Centre to launch an immunization drive among adults to combat Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in north Bengal.

According to Minister of State for Health, Chandrima Bhattacharya, there was only one child, who died yesterday, among the 71 persons who have died so far of the acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) and JE in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH) this month. The health department took the decision to approach the Centre after studying the trend of patients’ death.

“The child was a resident of Cooch Behar, an unimmunized district for JE.

But no death of children was reported from Jalpaiguri, the badly affected district in north Bengal,” said Mrs Bhattacharya, adding, “We have come to a conclusion that immunization of persons below 15 years of age in Jalpaiguri district was effective.”

“We will propose to the Centre to launch immunization programme among the adults in the JE-affected region following a pilot project, which is going on in Assam,” Ms Bhattacharya said. She also claimed: “Vaccination drive against the JE menace was usually carried out among children below 15 years. As a result, there is no such death report among children. But the present trend showed that a maximum of elderly people, who were out of the immunization drive.”

“We would launch a special drive in Cooch Behar, which was out of the purview of the JE immunization drive, following the death of a child there,” she added. At a time when Darjeeling MP SS Ahluwalia has demanded that the state government provide compensation for the next to kin of the victims, Mrs Bhattacharya yesterday told reporters: “We are looking into the matter.” Mr Ahluwalia raised a question, pointing out to the state’s initiative to compensate relatives of hooch victims two years ago, and asked why it should not provide financial assistance to the relatives of persons who died of encephalitis.