Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (11 September) praised Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his fight against the infamous disease encephalitis, tweets ANI.

Speaking at an event in Mathura, PM Modi also took on the critics for blaming the Yogi-led BJP government for the death of children due to the disease. He said the media and critics would not acknowledge the fact that the disease is near extinction now.

He also remembered how CM Yogi would bring up the matter in the parliament when he was an MP from Gorakhpur.

"I want to congratulate the Yogi government as there wasn't a single Parliament session that would go by without Yogi Adityanath talking about the dangerous and horrific stories of encephalitis and how children were dying in the state," said PM Modi.

The state government on Sunday (8 September) had claimed of “sharp decline” in the cases of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and Japanese Encephalitis (JE) this year.

Principal Secretary, Medical, Health & Family Welfare Department Devesh Chaturvedi told, “As many as 34 deaths have been caused due to AES this year (till August 27), while 890 patients of the disease have been admitted. As far as Japanese Encephalitis is concerned, only 4 deaths have been reported this year (till August 27), while 55 patients of the disease have been admitted.”

According to statistics, in 2017, as many as 3,911 AES patients with 641 deaths were reported and the number of patients of JE was 692 out of which 93 had died. However, there was seen a fall in the cases of both the diseases ever since, in terms of patients as well as deaths.