Yogi Adityanath: Opposition parties did nothing to fight Encephalitis

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday said that the parties that ruled the State from 1977 to 2017 made "zero contribution" to keeping Encephalitis in check. "The first encephalitis case was detected in UP in 1977. No initiative was taken by any government to check its spread to 38 districts. Between 1977 and 2017, 50,000 children died of the disease. The opposition, which ruled the state then, made zero contribution to check it," he said in his address in the UP Assembly.

Adityanath claims most kids who died due to encephalitis belonged to minorities

Yogi Adityanath said that 70 to 90% of the kids who died due to encephalitis were Dalits or belonged to the minority communities. The UP Chief Minister said that there were 2,900 cases of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in 2016, accounting for 491 deaths. In 2017, there were 3,911 cases and 641 deaths.

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'No vector-borne diseases are spreading in UP'

Claiming that unlike neighbouring states, no vector-borne diseases were spreading in Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath said, "This is due to our focus on the Swacch Bharat campaign for which we have even received an award," he said. CM Adityanath said that on Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary, the BJP leaders participated in an anti-plastic campaign ."I urge the MLAs to launch a similar campaign in their respective constituencies also and ensure the success of the Swachh Bharat campaign," he said.

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