Dengue tended to wreak havoc in southern Bengal taking at least seven districts under its grip with about 20,000 infected cases and 41 officially reported deaths — mostly from North 24 Parganas — sparking a war of words between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Opposition, sources said.
Things seem to worsen with the Government going on the denial mode and the Chief Minister accusing the opposition parties, and private clinics for “spreading rumour and panic for political gain and business,” apparently frightening and forcing the doctors to diagnose patients with “unknown fever affliction.”
No wonder why patients perished in hordes as Aedes Egyptae bit victims with vengeance particularly in Basirhat and Barasat sub-divisions of North 24 Parganas where labour crisis hit agriculture as labourers were either down with the dreaded disease or had started migrating to other places in substantial numbers.
De Ganga in Barasat-Basirhat was worst affected by the so-called “unknown fever” which mysteriously tended to rise after doctors “failed” to diagnose the cases particularly after Chief Minister warned action against spreading rumor and panic before telling a meeting how the BJP and left-ruled States like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Kerala were way ahead of Bengal in Dengue attack.
latest deaths were reported as late as on Thursday with four persons perishing to the dreaded disease in North 24 Parganas and one in one person each dying in Kolkata and Bhangar.
“Some political parties are spreading rumor and panic about dengue to gain mileage,” she said blaming the private diagnostic centres for “giving false reports to extract money from the patients.” No wonder why no eyebrows were raised when a Government medical team raided a private clinic in Burdwan district, seized documents and asked the management to show cause as to why they had diagnosed patients with dengue when there was no set up in the clinic to test dengue cases.
“In Bengal only 35 deaths and little more than 19,000 cases have been reported while in Maharashtra 437 people have died and in Gujarat the number of deaths is 430. In UP 141 people have perished and in Kerala, a left-ruled State, 111 patients have died. So when BJP and left ruled States have so many people dying why some people are singling out Bengal. They are doing so just to malign us, “she said warning diagnostic clinics to face the music for giving false reports.
“The people do not consider the changing weather patterns that have helped the mosquito carrying dengue virus thrive. Many people do not keep their houses clean and blame the Government. I want to ask whether the politicians blaming the Government keep their own houses clean,” she said in a bid to shift the blame on the element, people and the politicians.
“Consequently the doctors are looking up at Nabanna (State secretariat) for the Chief Minister’s clearance to decide on whether a case is a dengue or not,” said CPI(M)’s Manab Mukherjee while BJP’ locket Chatterjee said the “Chief Minister is forcing the Government to suppress reports when people are dying in such great numbers. Is it a democratic Government working in BengalIJ”
At Dum Dum in the northern fringes of Kolkata where the outbreak started, befuddled and terrified citizens said “every alternate house there are patients admitted in hospitals. Now even the doctors do not respond to calls. The Government says there is no dengue outbreak. where do we go nowIJ We are not venturing out of houses now.”
In South Kolkata people resorted to violence at Topsia area where they ransacked a Government health facility for failing to diagnose patients. “We do not want such useless clinics to display Government performance during elections. They are good for nothing and so we have pulled them down,” angry locals said.