At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

Bhopal, Oct 1 (SocialNews.XYZ) Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Thursday put the spotlight on gaps in healthcare, education, welfare delivery and land rights in Madhya Pradesh's tribal belt during his visit to Balaghat, where he met families who lost their children amid reports of illness and malnutrition and urged the government to plug the leaks. LoP Rahul Gandhi's visit to Jagla village in Birsa block came against the backdrop of a dispute over the number of deaths among tribal children. While the Madhya Pradesh administration has acknowledged 32 deaths, the Congress has claimed that the real figure is 43.

At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

At least 32 children have died in India's Balaghat district since May amid outbreaks of measles and malaria.

The Instagram accounts of three independent journalists — Bindu Gurjar, Lokbhadra Singh, and Monika Singh — were reportedly suspended earlier this month after they reported extensively on the deaths of tribal children in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district, and raised questioned about the discrepancies in the government claims surrounding the death. While Bindu and Monika’s accounts […]

The outbreak became deadlier for the children because many of them were malnourished.

The petition alleged that children were not receiving adequate medical care, with around 400 children being treated in a hospital that has only 50 beds.

The outbreak became deadlier for the children because many of them were malnourished.

Health authorities in Balaghat district have screened over 32,000 people and vaccinated more than 14,600 children since mid-July, after a cluster of fever, fever-with-rash and deaths surfaced in tribal habitations of Birsa block, with officials reporting no new measles case in the last seven days as the Centre and Madhya Pradesh government sustain a joint outbreak-response operation involving national teams, mobile health units and expanded village-level surveillance, as per senior officials in the Health Ministry. A cluster of fever, fever-with-rash illness and associated deaths was first reported from tribal habitations in Birsa block, Balaghat, in the second week of July 2026. The Madhya Pradesh government responded with active surveillance, house-to-house case finding, malaria testing and referral of severe cases, later widening the operation to adjoining vulnerable areas as the scale of the outbreak became clearer. The response has brought together the Centre, the Madhya Pradesh state government and several national health bodies. A National Joint Outbreak Response Team (NJORT) was deployed to Balaghat on 12 August to strengthen the multidisciplinary effort, joined by public-health surveillance experts, the Immunization Division and the National Centre for Vector Borne Disease Control (NCVBDC), along with an independent Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) investigation...