India: The ministries of health are silent on encephalitis

In my webwriting workshops, I used to use the website of India's Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as a spectacularly bad example of web design: animated GIFs, random links, and an overall lack of structure and navigation. Revisiting it today after a long absence, I found it much improved in looks. But in one critical way it remains a scandal.

India's media are understandably alarmed today at the reports from Uttar Pradesh about 7 more children dying of encephalitis, bringing the total this year to 390. But when I went to the ministry's site and searched for "encephalitis," I got "No record found."

Well, maybe encephalitis is a state responsibility? Go to the Uttar Pradesh government website and find the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare. And may you have better luck than I just finding a search function, never mind information on a major disease outbreak.

The Indian media are very fond of damning and blasting their governments for failure to cope with this or that outbreak of dengue or malaria or bird flu. I wish they'd reserve a few damns and blasts for their governments' failure even to use the online tools they have.