Press Statement, June 19, 2019
[Institutions associated with prominent freedom fighters Abbas Tyabji and Mahavir Tyagi—the Abbas Tyabji Educational and Charitable Trust and The Mahavir Tyagi Foundation for Political and Economic Decency—have issued the following statement.]
The encephalitis scourge has been affecting east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (India) for decades.
The death roll this year of suspected encephalitis cases in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur has already crossed 100. This is at the gates of Champaran, the site of Mahatma Gandhi’s first major intervention after returning from South Africa.
Gandhiji had invariably intervened in public health issues both in India and in South Africa and his work at the time of Plague in both countries is well known.
In this 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi, we call upon conscientious individuals and socially sensitive organisations, particularly Gandhi-related organisations and organisations working for medical inclusion, to draw national attention to this continuing catastrophe and to confer with medical personnel and immunologists on ways to control and wipe out this scourge both by way of all possible relief and further focused research.
