aes...
a pallid
shroud
A morbid stain, spreading across the map.
The vectors are unknown, the symptoms
many...a silent army of assassins at large.
by Damayanti Datta
T
here are two children and two sets of parents
on every bed. Young mothers cradle limp chil-
dren. Fathers fuss over immobile babies, barely
visible through a maze of tubes and masks.
Many more lie on the floor, with parents franti-
cally fanning them to beat the stifling heat.
Nurses and doctors run around. Machines blink and
glow. high-pitched wailings hush the crowd, some-
times, as little bodies swathed in white are carried
out. Or “Wapas jao (go back)” protests ring out as TV
anchors or ministers float in and out. But only for a
moment. There’s no time to grieve or get angry. The
clock is ticking on very sick children.
Time is running out. The shocked nation watches, as
heart-wrenching images and stories of suffering from
ground zero—Muzaffarpur district in North Bihar—flash
across newspapers and television screens. Children are
dying like flies every day. A mystery killer is claiming little
lives in the blink of an eye: 9 children by June 2, 50 by
June 13, 136 by June 20, 170 by June 25. Some 700 chil-
dren have already been infected across 16 districts in less
than a month. Stark statistics are on the wall: it has killed
over 60,000 across India in 2010-16, nearly 50 per cent of
those who were infected. There’s fear in the air. Hundreds
2018
Cases:
11,388
Deaths:
636
cover sTory
lOsT Threads
a mother grieves over
the body of her child
who died from aes
8 July 2019 OutlOOk 31
Photograph: SoNu kiShaN