Assam: Death Toll Rises To 52 As JE Claims 4 More Lives

Guwahati: At least four more people have died due to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in Assam, pushing the death toll to 52.

Officials said that all four casualties were reported from Assam's Nagaon district. The state has detected a total of three fresh cases in the state in the last 24 hours.

With this, the total number of cases in the state since July 1 this year stands at 305.

The new cases were reported from the Bongaigaon, Majuli, and West Karbi Anglong districts of the state.

Nagaon district has recorded the highest number of Japanese Encephalitis cases in the state with 44, followed by Jorhat at 39 and Golaghat at 34.

The National Health Mission (NHM) has issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) and guidelines to keep the outbreak under control and health workers have been carrying out massive awareness campaigns against the disease throughout the state.

Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that belongs to the same genus as the dengue, yellow fever and West Nile viruses.

Hosts for JE are birds (herons and egrets). Pigs act as amplifiers of the virus and produce a high viral load that infects mosquitoes.

The best cures for JE are staying protected from mosquito bites, pig farms etc. In case of symptoms like fever, headache, neck rigidity, etc., one needs to go to the designated hospitals immediately for treatment.

To combat the disease, the government has taken measures to fight the vector-borne disease. It has kept all the nine medical colleges and ten district hospitals in the state ready with ICU and laboratory test facilities and designated them JE treatment centres.

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