When Health Minister Damodar Rout and his Cabinet colleague, Agriculture Minister Devi Prasanna Mishra reviewed the dengue menace situation here on August 3, Mishra had asserted that the State Government would soon get control over the situation and there will be ‘zero’ occurrence of the viral disease in seven days.
But exactly ten days after Mishra’s assertion, 39 fresh cases of dengue positive were detected on Tuesday, taking the total number of patients suffering from the viral disease in the State to more than one thousand. Out of the fresh 39 cases detected on the day, 26 are from Cuttack city itself, thereby taking the total number of people affected in the disease close to 600.
This indicates that the State Government, particularly, the Health department has utterly failed in curbing the menace and shockingly enough, fresh areas of the city have now come under the grip of dengue. Whereas the occurrence of the disease was only limited to the heart of the city, dengue has now appeared in the eastern limits of the city when the blood samples of a person in Bidyadharpur area was tested positive.
Currently, 109 patients suffering from dengue are undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College and Hospital facility here of whom four are stated to be serious and they are under intensive care , sources in the SCB said.