Oldest affected boy among 4 similar children in a 6 sibling family. The mother is also affected. The father had smallpox 40 years ago, when he was 2 and a half. The boy in the picture's grandmother lives with them. They do eat khesari dal (lathyrus sativus). This is near Bahutoli in Suti I block (Ahiron BPHC) of Murshidabad. Bahutoli is 5 km from Rajgram station (Birbhum).
There has been a polio case on 28th May in Muraroi 2 (Birbhum district). There is another Polio case recently at Dhuliyan (within 40 km).
In 2007 there was a JE vaccination campaign that covered Birbhum. We met a girl in another home in this village who became disabled after encephalopathy. She was educated up to class 8, but has now discontinued. Her aunt is an ICDS worker.
446 families below the poverty line applied for latrines under this programme last year in Bochadanga Panchayat. The Rs 123,800 they contributed has been returned by CADC Kaliaganj. Proshikha could not manage to complete their work either. Now Chatrapur Vivekananda Ramakrishna Samitary Mart has been approached. We heard that many other families will be rejected as they do not have BPL cards. This is different from Janani Suraksha Yojana where the village Prodhan can attest that the family of a pregnant woman is poor. Maybe some simplification of the process to get latrines will help speed up the process. There is now a huge amount of unmet demand for sanitation in rural areas.
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