In the first death due to Dengue this season, a 22- year- old woman, a resident of Haridwar, fell to the dreaded vector-borne disease on Monday. The patient was brought to the Himalayan Hospital Jollygrant on Monday morning with the symptoms of the disease. On rapid test of the patient, Dengue was confirmed by the doctors. The patient died later in the day. The death of the patient due to Dengue has rattled the health department. The teams of the department were rushed to the area where the family of the Dengue victim resided to collect blood samples of the family members.
The chief medical officer ( CMO) of Dehradun Dr S K Gupta told The Pioneer that preliminary report revealed that the woman was suffering from both Dengue and scrub typhus. He said that the Dengue would be confirmed only when the Enzyme linked Immuno Sorbent Assay ( ElISA) test comes positive. The CMO claimed that the department is in a state of alert to tackle the disease. He said that teams of the health department are undertaking a door to door survey in different parts of the district. These workers are informing people about the preventive measures to be taken to check the spread of the disease, he claimed.
Meanwhile, one more patient with symptoms of the disease has been admitted at the Government Doon Medical College ( GDMC) Hospital on Sunday. The blood sample of the patient has been taken and sent for confirmatory ElISA test.
In 2017 a total of 198 cases of the disease had been reported from Dehradun district while in 2016, 1428 patients of the Dengue had been reported.