New Delhi, Aug 23 - 'If you have fits, it can be treated. You are not possessed by evil spirits!' Trying to dispel myths about epilepsy in India's rural hinterlands, the Lifeline Express - the country's only hospital-on-tracks - has now introduced epilepsy treatment and awareness on board.

As per World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, as many as 10 to 12 million Indians, the majority of whom are in rural India, are affected by epilepsy.

When the Lifeline Express, a five-coach train-hospital, chugged in at the Vidhisha station in Madhya Pradesh in July this year, Mamta Bhushan Singh, assistant professor of neurology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), was also on board as a guest.

She told the train's in-charge, 64-year-old retired Colonel Randher Singh Vishwen, that she would be interested in seeing patients.

'Once I let them know that I would love to see some patients in the few hours that I was there, word spread quickly and by evening I had examined 30 patients of epilepsy. I could not finalise the diagnosis and line of treatment in all patients, but there were many where I could start treatment right away. Most patients were drug naive,' Bhushan Singh told IANS.

Bhushan Singh said she saw patients mutilated with scars of injuries, knocked-out teeth and burns - 'who had been having seizures for most of their lives but had never ever been treated'.

She spoke of an 80 percent treatment gap for epilepsy patients in India.

'Adding to that there is mistreatment. Unaware, villagers often deem a person with epilepsy as someone taken by spirits. Superstition and myth coupled with discrimination - epilepsy patients are shunned,' she said.

In rural areas, people have little awareness about causes of epilepsy, she says.

'Poor sanitation, malnutrition, birth hypoxia, tumors, accidents or injury, all can cause various forms of epileptic attacks.