4 min readBhopalAug 12, 2026 06:07 PM IST
First published on: Aug 12, 2026 at 07:00 AM IST
Six children have died and 100 others have fallen ill in four remote, Baiga-dominated villages of Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district over the past month. The health department said it learnt about the deaths only after three children had already died.
Though the exact cause of the illness and deaths is not known yet, the immediate challenge for authorities was locating the children in the remote areas and convincing their parents to allow them to be taken to hospital. Eventually, the health officials had to take police’s help to ensure the children were sent to the hospital.
The children, aged between one and 13, are from Adori, Kundeksa, Bondari and Korka villages in the Baihar area. They have reported high fever, rashes, red spots, stomach pain and ulcers. Of the 100 children who have fallen ill, 47 are currently admitted to hospitals and 54 are being treated at home, officials said.
With the exact cause of the illness not known yet, blood samples have been sent to the ICMR-National Institute of Research in Bacterial Infections in Kolkata and the ICMR-National Institute of Virology in Pune. A team from Jabalpur Medical College is investigating the outbreak.
Series of challenges
Before identifying the disease, the challenge before the authorities was locating the children.
“We got to know about the deaths after three had already taken place. After a local source informed us, we sent out a team,” Balaghat chief medical and health officer (CMHO) Paresh Upal told The Indian Express.
The team then faced an arduous journey into the affected settlements.
“It was extremely difficult to access the terrain because some of the houses were located on a small hill, while others were situated near dense forested regions. So it was very difficult to carry out a health investigation on the ground,” Upal said.
Once the health teams reached the villages, officials encountered another problem: Families reluctant to disclose the cases.
“The villagers were extremely reluctant to come forward with the cases because they did not want their children to be admitted to the hospitals,” Upal said.
“We were not able to convince these people to hand over their children for treatment,” he said.
The officials left and returned with the police.
“We had to go back and get the help of the entire police administration to ensure we get those children to the hospital,” Upal said.
By then, some families had started using faith healing and other practices in an attempt to treat or revive the sick children, according to the CMHO.
“This also took up a lot of time,” he said.
‘Parents hid their children in forests’
The complications were not over yet.
“We also had this case of parents hiding their children in forests,” Upal said.
Health officials had to locate the children and bring them into medical care. The resistance, though, did not end after the children reached hospitals.
According to Upal, in some cases, parents followed their children to the hospital and attempted to take them away before they had been formally discharged.
“We also had this case of parents tracking down their children in the hospital and then trying to leave with them without a discharge slip,” he said.
The department spent considerable time trying to persuade the families to keep their children under medical supervision.
With the outbreak continuing to be investigated, the health department has now deployed multiple teams in the affected area.
A medical post has been established on top of a hillock, with two medical officers stationed there to supervise the cases, the CMHO said.
The district administration has also established temporary health camps in the affected villages. With samples being examined at two ICMR laboratories, the children are being monitored for symptoms.
A number of affected children are undergoing treatment at Balaghat district hospital 
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