miércoles, 3 de julio de 2019

Don’t blame the litchi | The Indian Express

Written by T. Jacob John |Updated: July 3, 2019 1:41:04 am

The writer, a paediatrician-cum-virologist, has been president of Indian Academy of Pediatrics and retired from the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He investigated the Muzaffarpur disease in 2012, 2013 and 2014

Don’t blame the litchi

Deaths in Muzaffarpur are due to chronic malnutrition

AES, AES deaths in Bihar, AES death toll, bihar children deaths, bihar aes deaths, Muzaffarpur deaths AES, Acute encephalitis syndrome, what is AES, Narendra Modi, Bihar hospitals, Bihar government, Bihar health department, India news, Indian express — AES patients at Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur on June 23. (Express photo: Ritesh Shukla)

Muzaffarpur in Bihar is famous for litchis and infamous for children dying due to annual seasonal brain disease outbreaks. The common brain diseases in children with high mortality are meningitis, encephalitis and encephalopathy. These three have clear-cut differences and very different treatments. Trained paediatricians know how to distinguish the three. If diagnostic criteria are not applied for various reasons, then the three are not distinguished by doctors. That is when an easy diagnostic term covering all three — “acute encephalitis syndrome” (AES) — becomes handy.