The district health department, citing procedural issues, is failing to acknowledge death of a Bhandari Bagh resident by dengue. On July 07 the person, a teacher by profession, had died in Apollo hospital in Delhi. His relatives had rushed him to Delhi after his condition deteriorated in a private hospital of State capital. Incidentally both the private hospital and the Apollo hospital based on findings of rapid and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ElISA) test respectively had declared dengue to the patient.
The State health department however insists that no dengue case is reported in Dehradun this season. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Dehradun, Dr Y S Thapliyal told The Pioneer that the department only accepts the ElISA test reports of Doon hospital and the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT), Jollygrant.
He however added that the department has been put on alert mode for Dengue. The department has taken blood samples of five family members of the deceased who is suspected to have died from dengue and has undertaken fumigation of the disease prone areas. The report of the ElISA test of the family members is expected to arrive by Wednesday.
Dengue is a viral infection spread by the mosquito Aedes Aezypti popularly known as Tiger Mosquito due to the characteristic black and white stripes over its body. The symptoms of the disease are persistent high fever, rashes, headache and pain in the joints. In the acute cases the platelets number decrease drastically which may prove fatal for the patient. Rainy season is the best time for rapid growth of mosquito which can lay about 1200 eggs at a time and 400 -500 larvae can emerge from these eggs that take a week’s time to hatch. The mosquito infected with virus thus can increase its number exponentially infecting large number of people in a short span of time.The tiger mosquito strikes during day time and doctors suggest that people should wear full sleeved clothes to prevent mosquito bite.
In Uttarakhand the disease is more prevalent in Dehradun and Haridwar districts. The district health department of Dehradun had found 2567 suspected samples positive after Rapid test in the district last year. The number of samples found positive in ElISA test however was 829 and the department claimed that no death due to the disease occurred in the district last year.