After Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s instructions to health department for tackling dengue, health officials have pulled up it socks to deal with the deadly disease. Though not extreme but cases are regularly being witnessed by medical experts. In a rare case, the death of a young girl and a man recently had brought this mosquito-bite disease in limelight.
Stressing on the initiatives being taken by the government, Dr Pravin Chandra, Director-in-Chief of Health department said, “Civil Surgeons of all the districts have been directed to take necessary steps incase a patient is suspected with dengue. Facilities to detect this disease wherein blood platelets are counted by Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ElISA) M test kits, the kits are available at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Mahatma Gandhi Medical Hospital (MGM) and Patliputra Medical College and Hospital (PMCH). About 120 patients can avail this test at PMCH and MGM while 190 patients can have the same at RIMS. We have provided the ElISA-M test facility at Apollo Hospital as well.”
“A requisition to the Government of India for proving us more ElISA kits has been sent,” Dr Chandra added.
Moreover, State government officials are lining up with Ranchi Municipal Corporation for using the fogging machine regularly.
For the first ever, since the establishment of Dengue Ward in 2011, dengue case was reported on August 2 from a teenage resident of Giridih district at RIMS. By now, overall 12 cases have been reported. According to In-charge of this ward Nurse Ram Rekha Rai most of these cases have come from metropolitan cities including New Delhi, Bangalore, Surat, Jalandar and Mumbai. She said, “Out of the 12 cases, nine were reported in this month of which only three are left to be discharged from our ward. 90 per cent of these patients are metropolitan return people and it is obvious that they have been affected with the dengue virus there itself.”
Explaining about the symptoms of this disease she said, “Once the mosquito with dengue virus bites a person, high fever is the immediate effect followed with the decrease in blood platelets. In this situation, the person is suggested to undergo a special blood test. If the result is positive, then the patient is prescribed to be admitted at this ward. Thereafter, the patient is kept in the bed covered by mosquito net and supplied blood platelets for 30 minutes everyday.”
Notably, blood banks of the government hospitals have a machine which refines 300 mili litre (ml) blood for three hours. From this, 50 ml platelets are made. Then according to the low platelet count, patient is transfused required quantity of platelets.
On Monday, Ranchi Sadar hospital Civil Surgeon Dr DK Singh was reported a dengue case from Guru Nanak Hospital. “Fortunately, by the time we reached, the patient was cured,” he said.
Since most of the district hospitals do not have an isolated ward and other medical facilities required for dengue treatment, they are referring the patients to RIMS. Pankaj Verma, a labourer of Giridih who was attacked with Dengue on September 8 at Surat said, “When I reached my hometown last week, I was immediately referred to RIMS by our doctor due to lack of facilities.”