S. Asia Outbreak Appears to Slow

Japanese encephalitis killed 15 more people in northern India, taking the death toll from an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease in South Asia to 944 in the last six months.

But health officials said Saturday that the virulence of the disease appeared to be ebbing.

The new deaths -- mostly those of children -- occurred early Saturday in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, bringing its toll to 740, said Dr. O.P. Singh, director-general of the state’s health services. An additional 204 people have died in neighboring Nepal.

But Singh said it appeared the outbreak had peaked.

“Forty-two new cases were reported on Friday as compared to 110 a day earlier. The number is declining,” he said.

Meanwhile, UNICEF has offered to pay for an extra 14 doctors and 22 nurses for two months to treat patients in the state’s worst-hit district, Gorakhpur, Singh said.

Uttar Pradesh is an impoverished state of 180 million people, where medical facilities are negligible and a large part of the state is prone to outbreaks of the disease.

Japanese encephalitis kills a number of people, most of them children, each year during monsoon rains in the South Asian region, but this season’s toll is the highest in many years.

The provincial government says it cannot afford the vaccines that can prevent the disease.