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