State asks Health dept to spike mechanism to check dengue

Kolkata: The state Health department has raised an alarm after it found two patients testing dengue positive in two different hospitals in the city.

The appearance of dengue cases in the city at a time when COVID-19 has already created a scare among the people with many people succumbing to the virus, posed a serious challenge to the health officials.

The Health department has instructed all the district administrations to put up adequate mechanisms at the block level so that ELISA tests can be conducted on the patients who are potentially dengue suspects. Senior health officials have given a clear message to the district's health officers that suspected dengue patients cannot be ignored. Senior health department officials conducted a meeting in this regard at Swasthya Bhawan on Friday.

As most of the government run laboratories are busy in COVID-19 testing, the district administrations have been asked to set up a system so that Elisa tests can be performed at the hospitals in the district and block level. Even if the hospitals which have been treating COVID patients should have arranged a place for a dengue test. There will be a separate ward in the government run hospitals in the district for treating dengue patients.

A senior health official said that adequate infrastructure would be set up in various government hospitals for conducting ELISA tests.

Those hospitals and laboratories which are not carrying out Covid tests will be utilised for dengue testing. Baghajatin State General Hospital and Vidyasagar Hospital in the hospital will conduct dengue tests, officials said.

According to sources in the health department, dengue tests were earlier conducted in more than 72 laboratories across the state but most of them are now used for COVID testing.

Hence, various hospitals in the city and also in the districts will set up additional infrastructure for ELISA tests. All the chief medical officers in the districts will ensure that the infrastructure is ready in their respective districts.