Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Monday alleged that previous governments did not pay heed on checking acute encephalitis as the kids affected by the disease belonged to poor and deprived families.
"Since 1978, communicable disease acute encephalitis syndrome started spreading in different districts of the eastern UP but previous governments didn't pay attention to its treatment because the kids belonged to poor and deprived families," the chief minister said.
Inaugurating the second phase of the Communicable Disease Control and Dastak Abhiyan 2019 by flagging off vehicles to conduct awareness campaigns and honouring Dastak Yoddhas by awarding them certificates, the CM said the efforts of his government have started yielding favourable results.
The Health Department coordinated with 12 other departments to develop the programme. Combined efforts of the WHO, UNICEF, PATH and public participation have helped in fighting against this disease, Adityanath said.
The campaign was launched last year and since then, we have been successful in reducing the disease burden by 35 per cent and deaths by 65 per cent. This could be achieved as the state government increased the awareness programmes, he said.
Yogi said about 38 districts of the state are affected by encephalitis. Out of these, `18 districts were affected by majorly.