*PATNA, INDIA: *The Indian state of Bihar grappled Monday with twin crises,with a brain virus potentially linked to lychees killing almost 100children and extreme heat leaving 78 people dead.
The heatwave, India’s second-longest on record, prompted authorities inpart of the northern state, one of the country’s poorest, to imposecurfew-like restrictions.
Daytime temperatures across large parts of India have hovered above 40degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) for the past 32 days, just one short of arecord 33-day period in 1988.
Temperatures touched 50.3 degrees Celsius in the town of Churu in thenorthern desert state of Rajasthan recently, just below India’s record of51 degrees.
Bihar, home to almost 100 million people, has seen temperatures hoveringaround 45 degrees for several days.
Severe heat there has killed 78 people, most of them aged above 50, acrossthree districts since Saturday afternoon, local official Sandeep Kumar said.
More than 130 others were undergoing emergency treatment for heatstroke invarious hospitals.
Authorities in Gaya district which has borne the brunt of the heatwaveinvoked an Indian law to prohibit residents from going outdoors fornon-essential work.
The district magistrate also banned construction work and any outdoorprogramme between 11:00am to 4:00pm.
Heatstroke is usually caused by prolonged exposure to sun or from physicalexertion in high temperatures.
It has left more than 36 people dead in southern India in recent weeks.Large parts of India are also reeling from drought, with annual monsoonrains late in coming.
Last week four passengers on a train travelling from Agra, the city of theTaj Mahal, to Coimbatore in the country’s south died from heatstroke.
Bihar, home to some of India’s worst health indicators, has also beenstruggling with an outbreak of AcuteEncephalitis Syndrome (AES), a viral infection, since the start of thismonth.
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Eighty children have now died in the state’s biggest government-runhospital, the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), in the cityof Muzaffarpur, and 17 others at a private facility, health official AshokKumar Singh said.
Most of the victims had suffered a sudden loss of glucose in their blood,Singh said.
TV channels showed distraught parents sitting next to their children,several of whom were cramped on one bed.
One parent heckled India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan as he took hisentourage around the SKMCH for an inspection.
A doctor told a local TV channel that the SKMCH was ill-equipped to handlethe rush of patients, most of whom were wheeled in semi-conscious.
The outbreak of the disease has happened annually during summer months inthe same districts since 1995, typically coinciding with the lychee season.
Several years ago US researchers had said the brain disease could be linkedto a toxic substance found in the fruit.
Known locally as Chamki Bukhar, the disease claimed a record 150 lives in2014.
They also said more study was needed to uncover the cause of the illness,which leads to seizures, altered mental state and death in more than athird of cases.
Outbreaks of neurological illness have also been observed in lychee-growingregions of Bangladesh and Vietnam. -APP/AFP
