NHRC notice to three states over encephalitis

The NHRC Thursday issued notice to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha over recurrence of Japanese encephalitis, blaming their lackadaisical attitude towards curbing the disease.

Pulling up the state administrations for not taking enough preventive measures, the National Human Right Commission (NHRC) has asked the chief secretaries of the three states to submit a detailed report within six weeks.

"There is a large gap in demand and supply of the preventive vaccine, absence of which makes children under 10 years of age the most vulnerable to the disease due to nutritional deficiency," said the commission.

"The deaths show lack of preventive inoculation to infants in all the traditionally affected districts such as Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, Malda, Jalpaigudi and Siligudi in West Bengal," it said.

Citing media reports, the NHRC said 67 infants have died due to the disease in West Bengal while 315 cases were reported from Uttar Pradesh this year.

The commission observed that the reports, if true, amount to a serious violation of human rights of children.