More than 200 children have died in India in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis.

At least 210 children have died and many others are fighting for life in an outbreak of encephalitis in Northern India.The mosquito-carried brain disease has hit India’s northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, health officials said today. Medics at the Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Uttar Pradesh's eastern district of Gorakhpur, at the heart of the outbreak, said nearly 900 children had been admitted since January. Some patients had come from neighbouring Bihar state and Nepal. "One hundred seventy-four children have died due to the virus this year since January and 111 are still admitted, many of whom are in a serious condition," Dr Kushwaha told reporters.

Althoutgh it can be prevented through costly and difficult to implement vaccination programmes, there is no specific cure for the disease which is mostly caused by a viral infection. The risk of contracting the virus increases during and after India’s monsoon, which lasts roughly from June to October. Uttar Pradesh’s neighbouring Bihar state is on high alert to check the spread of the disease after 39 children have died of encephalitis since late July, the Indo Asian news service reported. They died at the main government hospital in the state capital, Patna, while many other children are in various hospitals for treatment. All the dead children were younger than 10 and from poor families.
Sick children reported sudden, light fevers in the early morning, followed by bouts of unconsciousness and convulsions, leading to their deaths. Children aged between six months to 15 years are worst affected."The attack of the encephalitis virus is extremely ferocious this year," said Dr Rashmi Kumar, an expert on Japanese encephalitis at Lucknow Medical College hospital. "Children are developing a serious condition within a day or two of getting infected," she said.

Last year, in Gorakhpur, the worst hit area, the government said it would spend 60 million rupees (£75m) to upgrade facilities at Gorakhpur Medical College hospital. But, doctors say, the hospital does not have enough medical staff to deal with the large numbers of patients. The children who do survive will have to face lifelong problems, they noted, because the disease has a crippling effect.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children