Raghopur, Feb. 8: Nine-year-old Kavita lay on a bed, her frail form full of rashes, while some women chanted bhajans to Goddess Durga. Kavita is one of the more than 200 children (till 15 years of age) suffering from measles in three villages of Vaishali district's Raghopur block, deputy chief minister Tejaswi's constituency, across the Ganga from Patna.

People in the villages of Vaishali mauled by the measles outbreak - an outbreak is declared if at least five cases of a disease are found from a place - believe that Goddess Durga has "entered" the child's body and will only leave if pleased with worship. Hence the bhajans.

As The Telegraph found after visiting the measles-affected villages Jurawanpur Karari (west and east) and Shivnagar on Sunday, the children are at the mercy of the gods. Frontline health workers, local health authorities or the health department - presided over by Tejaswi's brother, Tej Pratap - are doing little to provide help.

The Telegraph came across more than 100 children suffering from measles in these villages, though the medical officer in-charge of Mohanpur Referral Hospital claimed the total number of affected children was 50.

Children suffering from measles often develop secondary, potentially lethal infections like pneumonia, diarrhoea and encephalitis. Measles is vaccine preventable, but a vaccination card - a checklist of vaccines that should be given to a child at different stages of growth - is an unheard-of concept for most here.

"What is it? What does it do?" Kavita's mother, Pavitri Devi (42), asked when asked if her daughter had a vaccination card. When this correspondent explained to her what a vaccination card is, Pavitri said she did not have vaccination cards for any of her three children. She said four children in her extended family home were suffering from measles for the last 15 days, and Goddess Durga was being prayed to for all four.

"At the end of five and seven days, we put turmeric on the children's bodies," she added.

Ranjan Devi, Pavitri's neighbour and 10-year-old Kajal's mother, also said that she did not have any vaccination card for her child, who also has measles.

"We are chanting bhajans for Kajal. Besides, we are taking the help of a gardener. As per custom, a gardener provides ghee and herbal products that we have to apply on the body of the affected child. By this, Goddess Durga becomes happy and leaves the child's body. We are following the same tradition for Kajal," said Ranjan.

"Had children from these villages been vaccinated, they would not have had the disease," said a Unicef official who recently conducted a survey on measles in Kavita's village, Shivnagar. "In government health facilities, the children are vaccinated for measles twice. The measles vaccine is given to children at nine months and on completion of one -and-half years. In case of any dropout (non-vaccinated) case, the accredited social health activists (Ashas), auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) and anganwadi sevikas have to identify them and report it to the primary health centre and other government health facilities in the vicinity so that the dropouts can be immunised on time and a vaccine preventable disease does not occur among children."

ANMs, Ashas or anganwadi sevikas are doing nothing to contain the outbreak in Raghopur. Both Pavitri Devi and Ranjan Devi said such health workers have visited neither their homes nor their locality. Nageshwar Ram, a resident of Jurawanpur Karari (West), claimed that when he went to ask for help from an anganwadi sevika for the treatment of some children at his home, the health worker said she was busy with some training meant for anganwadi sevikas.

Kumari Bharti, an anganwadi sevika in Jurawanpur Karari (East), was not even aware about the measles outbreak in her village. "I will have to conduct a survey to check the affected population," she said.

Sunil Keshri, the medical officer-in-charge of the Mohanpur Referral Hospital, claimed that necessary treatment was being provided to the affected children in the region.

"A World Health Organisation team came and took blood samples of around 50 affected children," Keshri said.

"Vitamin A tablets were provided to the affected children because Vitamin A deficiency happens among measles-affected children. As far as dropout cases of vaccination are concerned, there are many families where two children have been vaccinated against measles and two have not been vaccinated. Health workers are not to be blamed for this as the family members themselves did not get the children vaccinated because of superstitions."

Asked what measures were being taken to contain the spread of measles in Vaishali district, health department principal secretary R.K. Mahajan said he was unaware about the outbreak.

"I don't have any information about this," Mahajan said. "We only know about the chickenpox outbreak in the Muzaffarpur region. A health department team has been sent today to access the situation of the area."