Mumbai, Even as the municipal corporation is investigating the two suspected dengue deaths in the city, doctors in various hospitals are concerned about the fact that the patients are being detected late and coming in only after serious complications.
Around 122 cases of dengue have been confirmed in the city so far and these are from various places like Chembur, Mulund, Ghatkopar, Dadar and Colaba. Surprisingly, even police station areas like Jogeshwari, Oshiwara and Pydhonie have been affected by dengue and many police personnel have been laid low with this disease.
Municipal sources said that the intermittent rains in the city since the beginning of September has resulted in formation of puddles of water that are perfect breeding grounds for the dengue mosquitoes. “These are the tiger mosquitoes that attack in the day time and efforts are being taken to fog areas like Colaba, Dadar, Mulund, Chembur and Ghatkopar which are badly affected
by dengue cases this year,” he said.
Sources said that there appear to be many deaths in the central suburbs that do not seem to have a clear cause of death. “But the symptoms that they report before their death are similar to dengue and hence we have sent their body samples for a histopatholgy report,” a senior doctor said.
According to Dr Shahid Barmare, consultant physician, Kohinoor Hospital, Kurla, the reason late detection is that the tests that are carried out within the first two days of this disease come out negative. “It is only around the 5th day when a second type of test is carried out that the patient tests positive and then treatment starts,” he pointed out.
Dr Barmare said “Fortunately, we have not seen any deaths so far and the patients have responded to the treatment quite well.” The most critical factor remains the early diagnosis of dengue which will help tremendously in managing the patients and helping them in recovering, he said.
Minister of Public Health Dr. Deepak Sawant on Tuesday chaired a meeting with the officials of his department to check the preparedness to prevent and manage the rising cases of dengue in the state. Sawant announced that action will be taken against private laboratories who fleece patients who have come for blood test.
“The state has adequate stock of medicine to manage the rising cases of dengue therefore people should not panic,” Sawant said.
According to the department, the state has so far registered 2,582 cases of dengue while 122 of these have been reported by Mumbai. “The cases of dengue, which have been mainly reported from Nashik, Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Ahmednagar, have increased in July and August. Of the 2,582 cases, 1,672 cases have been reported from urban areas, while the remaining 910 cases were from the rural areas of the state,” a senior official said. Meanwhile, 439 cases of chikungunya have been reported in the state and 90 per cent of the cases have come from Pune city and Pune rural areas.
