(CNN) Scores of parents and locals gathered outside a hospital in the eastern Indian state of Bihar on Tuesday to protest the death of more than 100 children over the past three weeks.

Health authorities have confirmed that at least 109 children have died in the city of Muzaffarpur due to inflammation or infection in the brain. The fatal diagnosis is acute encephalitis, a neurological disease caused by either a virus or environmental toxins connected to the lychee fruit.

Protestors were yelling for government officials, who have been trickling in to assess the situation, to leave the hospital premises.

Local media showed mothers sobbing, parents running alongside gurneys transporting their babies, and droves of parents entering the hospital premises with children in their arms, asking for help.

Official responses -- both medical and administrative -- have been weak and delayed, some politicians say. In just two hospitals in the region, more than 400 children complaining of fever, dizziness and delirium have been admitted since the start of the year.

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