The Indian government has sent a high level multi-disciplinary team to Muzaffarpur district of the eastern state of Bihar to support the state government in epidemiology research, as the death toll of kids dying due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) crossed the 100-mark.

According to official sources in the Union Health Ministry, to combat the recurring situation and find causes of the disease, the central government is mulling over setting up as many as five virological labs in different districts in Bihar.

Also, the Bihar government will set up a 100-bedded paediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Sri Krishna Medical College in the next year.

Besides, in the districts adjoining Muzaffarpur, 10-bedded paediatric ICUs will be set up to ensure better and exclusive treatment, added the sources.

The country's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had on Monday told the media that efforts would be made to find out causes of the disease. "I am monitoring the situation very closely and am of the opinion that we should have a research facility in the affected area soon, to know about the causes of this disease in more details," said he.

In order to establish the causes of the disease, there is an urgent need for an inter-disciplinary, high quality research team, the minister said, adding that the research team shall work with the children suffering from AES, looking at various aspects, including periodicity, cycle of disease, environmental factors and metrological data, besides other factors.