Hyderabad: With 10 more deaths of children due to viral fever in three districts of Andhra Pradesh, the toll has mounted to 87, even as the state machinery has been put on high alert to check its spread.

During the last 24 hours, five deaths were reported from Warangal, four in Karimnagar and one in Ranga Reddy district, official sources said.

Expressing concern over the alarming rise in death rate among children due to the viral fever, Chief Minster N Chandrababu Naidu announced setting up of a five-member expert committee to conduct an analysis of the Suspected Viral Encephalitis (SVE), they said.

The expert committee is expected to submit its report in a couple of days, they said.

Naidu, who earlier had announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 50,000 for each of the family of the deceased, exempted medical and health staff from taking part in the ongoing Janmabhoomi community development programme. He asked them to be on high alert in Telangana districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Nalgonda and Nizamabad districts.

Niloufer Hospital superintendent Dr N C K Reddy said three children, who were brought in a bad condition on July 9, died within an hour and about 10 children with similar symptoms were undergoing treatment.

Medical teams from National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Delhi, and National Institute of Virology, Pune, have collected the blood samples to identify the virus and the reports are awaited, official sources said.

PTI