THOUGH THE records of the Communicable Diseases Department state that over 300 children were afflicted with Japanese Encephalitis and 60 of them died this year, Director General Medical Health Dr B Nath made a U-turn here today and said that there was no JE patient in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Confirming the death of one patient due to Japanese Encephalitis, Dr Nath added that out of 164 samples of suspected encephalitis patients’, merely 12 samples tested positive. The laboratory tests were conducted in BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur, she said.
The regional laboratory located in the Health Directorate and SGPGIMS also confirmed that all the samples were JE negative after conducting the laborat-ory tests of the samples, Dr Nath said.
She further said that a team of the Health Directorate had visited Gorakhpur to collect the samples of the patients. SGPGIMS experts were conducting tests to identify the killer virus. “A different virus or disease might have killed the children”, she said.
Dr Nath informed that the health department had urged the National Institute of Virology to send its team to east UP to identify the encephalitis virus.