india

Updated: Jun 15, 2019 09:00 IST

Nine more children died on Friday in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, which is reeling under an outbreak of brain fever, taking the toll to 63 this month, with officials maintaining the deaths were due to hypoglycemia.

All the victims have fallen prey to hypoglycemia, a condition caused by a very low level of blood sugar and electrolyte imbalance, they said.

The children died in two hospitals of Muzaffarpur, one of which was visited by state Health Minister Mangal Pandey during the day.

On Friday, a seven-member team from the Centre examined patients at the SKMCH and prepared a report on the hospital’s management of the disease.

The team led by Dr Arun Kumar Singh, national advisor of Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram, which submitted its report to the director general, health services, on Friday, said resources were not being optimally utilised at the hospital, a state health official privy to the report said.

A copy of the report was also handed over to Sanjay Kumar, the principal secretary, health, in Bihar.

Singh declined to comment. The report also mentioned that doctors were not performing CT (computed tomography) scans as they were not familiar with diagnosis and management protocol for AES, said the official. CT scan is available at the hospital on public-private partnership basis.

“Though ventilators — at least six of them — were available in paediatric intensive care units (PICUs), they were not being put to use as the doctors were not trained. No trained intensivist was available at the hospital to run the ventilator. Even arterial blood gas (ABG) analysers were not being put to use as doctors did not know precisely when to use them in such cases,” the report said.

“We are open to supporting and developing capacity of state health personnel. We are even willing to share our functional model of ICU and send our team of experts and paramedics to SKMCH for firefighting and hands-on training of their personnel,” said AIIMS-Patna director Dr Prabhat Kumar Singh.

Dr Lokesh Tiwari, associate professor of AIIMS-Patna, is one of the members of the central team.

Since June 1, 178 and 72 children were admitted in SKMCH and Kejriwal hospital respectively with suspected cases of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) but most of them were found to be victims of hypoglycemia.

The health minister who held a meeting with doctors and officials at the SKMCH said six more ambulances will be available there from Friday and a 100-bed new ward will be made operational soon.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already directed the officials concerned to ensure that preventive measures were taken in the affected districts, though deaths have so far been reported from Muzaffarpur only.

Health Department’s Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar had earlier said the disease has affected 222 blocks of 12 districts especially Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Sheohar and East Champaran.