The health department has prodded district magistrates and chief medical officers-cum-civil surgeons of four districts to alert the state machinery to admit children from the countryside down with acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) symptoms.

Children are falling sick with AES symptoms as the temperature has crossed 40ºC in Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar and Motihari districts. AES cases have started pouring in at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH).

So far, the death toll has touched five.

"Year-and-a-half-old Mohammad Aashiq of Bhatha village in Sheohar district and six-year-old Sawan Kumar of Runnisaidpur in Sitamarhi district were rushed to SKMCH in a precarious condition on Sunday night but died of encephalitis last (Monday) night," said chief medical officer Giyan Bhushan.

SKMCH superintendent Dr G.K. Thakur said he had sent an SOS to the health department in view of deaths of children afflicted with AES increasing with rise in temperature. Thakur said the doctors were leaving no stone unturned in admitted ailing children and treating them in the intensive care unit of the paediatric ward.

Principal health secretary Brajesh Mehrotra said the authorities have been instructed to bring children showing AES symptoms by hiring ambulances to SKMCH. The government has created 50 ICU beds, specially in the paediatric ward. The government has mapped vulnerable families and awareness plan among vulnerable population with simple information on symptoms of AES.