Hundred children killed in India from Brain Fever

More than 100 children in the Indian state of Bihar – which has some of the country’s worst health indicators – have now been killed by a brain virus potentially linked to lychees, officials said.

The northern state, one of India’s poorest and home to almost 100 million people, is also in the throes of a major heat wave that is the country’s second-longest on record and has so far claimed 78 lives.

Bihar has been struggling with an outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) since the start of June.

Eighty-five children have now died in the state’s biggest government-run hospital – the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, in the city of Muzaffarpur – and 18 others at a private facility, according to municipal officials cited by the Press Trust of India.