The disease has already claimed 145 lives in the region this year

At a time when people are praying for a bountiful monsoon, rains bring death and devastation in the eastern belt of Uttar Pradesh. And if the locals are to be believed, the season of death has started as encephalitis cases are reported from across the region. For years now, hundreds of children have been dying and an equal number have been disabled for life because of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), more specifically Japanese encephalitis (JE), commonly called brain fever.