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09/07/2005:

"Virus Ravaging India's Poor Stirs Call for Counterattack"

LUCKNOW, India, Sept. 7 - Government ministers descended on this storied North Indian state capital on Wednesday to kick off an ambitious rural health initiative. The city's roads were freshly tarred, and banners hung along the main boulevard to welcome its chief guest: former President Bill Clinton.

All were victims of the viral disease known as Japanese encephalitis, which causes high fever, aches, eventual coma and often death. It has struck this region with a particular fury this year, shining a harsh light on India's inability to halt an entirely preventable disease that has killed or stunted some of its most vulnerable citizens for the last quarter-century - the young rural poor.

The director general of the state government's health department said Wednesday that since July 1 the death toll had reached nearly 500, and those were only cases reported to government hospitals across the state. Reuters on Wednesday gave a figure of 600.

More than 1,500 suspected cases of Japanese encephalitis have been reported so far, according to the state.
nytimes.com