UP: Students conduct awareness campaign about encephalitis in Gorakhpur

A total of seven thousand students from various schools on Monday took part in a rally to spread awareness about encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur city.

The children were seen carrying placards to spread awareness about the vector-borne disease.

One of the students, who took part in the rally told ANI said that the main aim behind this initiative is to create awareness among the masses to fight against the encephalitis.

"The rally has been taken up to create awareness among people about mosquitoes and cleanliness so that people can keep themselves safe. We should keep our surroundings clean so that mosquitoes don't breed," the student named Soni Yadav said.

Meanwhile, District Magistrate K Vijayendra Pandian, who was also the part of the rally, said the awareness campaign will continue for a month in the city.

He explained, "This is the second phase of the rally which will continue for a month. The first phase of the campaign was conducted in April. A total of 7000 students are participating. The school students were selected to do spread awareness because they are the most prone to this disease."

"There is no permanent treatment for acute encephalitis syndrome and Japanese encephalitis, however, we can control it from spreading with the help of vaccination," he continued.

The District Magistrate further informed that awareness rallies conducted in the past a few months have helped the society to a great extent.

Encephalitis is a viral disease that causes mild flu-like symptoms such as high fever, convulsions, and headache and has been reported from many parts of India.