While the Capital recorded over half a dozen dengue deaths last week alone, the three MCDs are still singing the same old tune. According to MCD’s dengue report of this week, no new death due to mosquito-borne disease have been reported. But inquiries from Government and private hospitals have revealed that MCD reports are far from real and are grossly underreported. Till now, the death toll has risen to 34 while MCDs claims that only 17 deaths and 5982 dengue cases have been registered.
Crying foul, Opposition leaders said the reports are hugely tampered with. North DMC’s leader of Opposition Mukesh Goel said, “They are purposely misreporting facts and underreporting death cases. The number of deaths is double of what the MCD is representing. Reports from MCD’s Hindu Rao hospital claim that there were three deaths last week while MCD says there was none. The corporations are only bluffing the people of Delhi by underreporting facts.”
last week, the deadly vector-borne disease claimed three more lives at RMl hospital taking the death toll to 34. The hospital has recorded total number of eight deaths due to dengue. The latest victims were two girls — Nazreen (8) and Priyanka (18) who died last Wednesday and Sonu (38) died on Thursday. “Sonu was referred from Aruna Asaf Ali hospital to Hindu Rao in critical condition. He was admitted in the ICU and died due to dengue on September 24,” said the senior doctor at Bara Hindu Rao Hospital. He was resident of C-Block Mukundpur, added a doctor.
On Sunday, the AIIMS reported three cases of dengue deaths. “Three deaths have taken place in the past 24 hours, which includes 78-year-old male and two females.” A total of six dengue deaths have occurred so far at AIIMS, said a source.
But MCDs updated figure fail to feature any new death report. According to officials, nine deaths have been recorded in North MCD, six in South and two in East Corporation. Nazafgarh reported the highest number of cases at 235 this week. The numbers of cases has soared as high as 5,982 and are likely to break the record of year 2010, which was 6,259 in the entire year.
Nistha Taneja, 9, a resident of Malviya Nagar, died at Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj on Saturday. Family members alleged that Nistha was refused admission by two private hospitals despite Delhi Government’s order not to deny admission to any dengue patient.
“The death toll is the same. Experts who tally the MCD data take the information from all Government hospitals and then reach a certain conclusion. So there is no way that the reports are in anyway mended with. Dengue cases have certainly risen, especially in North, but the death count remains the same,” said an official.