Local news
Encephalitis kills 110 children in India


For weeks, the local papers here, which are delivered to my room every morning, have been talking about a "mystery fever" that is killing people. I'm in the state of Andhra Pradesh, which is also the state where this fever has been wiping out kids. They're thinking it's probably Japanese Encephalitis. Now, when I went to the Austin Diagnostic Clinic's travel center to get my vaccinations for India, I was offered the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine but was told that it was probably unnecessary. Hyderabad is dry enough that we don't get many mosquitos (comparatively), and there isn't too much of the disease here. So I didn't get the vaccine. But, as detailed in the article above, the rains have been particularly strong this year, and I have been being eaten alive by mosquitos.

Needless to say, I'm not too happy about being here in the midst of the outbreak, especially since there's really no way to cure it. Even though it seems to be only afflicting children, I don't really like taking the risk. If it continues to get worse, I might think about asking to come home.