'Brain fever' blamed for India child deaths preventable -doctors

FILE PHOTO: A child suffering from acute encephalitis syndrome lies on a bed at a hospital in Muzaffarpur, in the eastern state of Bihar, India, June 20, 2019. REUTERS/Alasdair Pal

MUZAFFARPUR, India (Reuters) - Five-year-old Soni Khatun was playing in the midday sun last week when she began to vomit and lose feeling in her hands. Her mother, a poor labourer living in rural India, borrowed money to take her to hospital.

Five hours later, Soni was dead, one of more than 100 children to die this month from Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), or 'brain fever', in one district of eastern Bihar state.