Japanese encephalitis is the single largest cause of viral encephalitis in the world today.
It occurs in yearly post monsoon outbreaks in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of India and
south east Asia. There is presently no antiviral drug of proven benefit for this illness and
treatment is mostly supportive. The drug Ribavirin is already in the market in use for other
indications. It has been found useful in West Nile encephalitis and various hemorrhagic
fevers caused by related arboviruses. This is a double blind placebo of Ribavirin in Japanese
encephalitis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such trial in the world. The
study hypothesis is that children treated with ribavirin will be no different from those
getting placebo in terms of mortality, length of hospital stay, days to return to
consciousness and oral feeds, days to become afebrile and convulsion free and in 3 month
sequelae rate.