kolkata: With a steep increase in the number of dengue cases from various parts of Bengal, the state health department has directed various government-run blood banks to preserve adequate platelets as the health officials apprehend that dengue cases may be found in the state till November.
All the government laboratories and hospitals have already been alerted by the department in the wake of the growing number of dengue cases this year. Meanwhile, Sharmila Chatterjee (59), a resident of Banerjeepara Haridebpur who was admitted to a private hospital in South Kolkata at 5.30 pm on Sunday died late night on the same day. The patient was brought to the hospital in critical condition from another private hospital in Tollygunge. Primary cause of death has been diagnosed as sepis due to dengue shock syndrome. The total dengue death toll in the state now stands at 4.
Platelet often plays a crucial role for dengue-infected patients. According to sources in government blood banks, the number of blood donation camps has decreased since the outbreak of the pandemic. Even if there is collection of blood from the camps, the segregation of platelets, plasma and other elements are not done on time as it takes a long time for the blood bank employees to reach their workplaces from the camps. The components of blood must be segregated within 4-5 hours from the collection of blood from the donors. It may be mentioned here that the health department every year issues some directives to the blood banks to make adequate arrangements of blood ahead of Durga puja celebrations. For the past two years, the magnitude of celebration was curtailed due to Covid. Dengue cases were on the lower side in the past two years.
"Dengue patients can bleed from any parts of their body if platelet drops below 20,000. Transfusion of platelets is a must in such cases. Platelet must be given to a patient as per his/her body weight. A patient normally requires around 5,000-6,000 platelets. The demand for platelets will further go up as the number of dengue patients increases," said Dr Gopeswar Mukherjee, a senior pathologist in the city.
The number of hospitalized dengue cases continues to rise and more than three people have already died of it. According to health department figures, more than 251 dengue patients were undergoing treatment in various government hospitals till Sunday night. Till Saturday night, around 243 dengue patients were admitted to state run hospitals.
Kolkata has so far reported the maximum number of dengue cases among any other district. The districts like Howrah, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Jalpaiguri are not far behind. North 24-Parganas has however the highest number of patients admitted in hospitals. Around 60 dengue patients are under treatment in various hospitals of North 24-Parganas. South 24 Parganas has 44 dengue patients admitted in hospitals, Jalpaiguri 42, Hooghly 40, Howrah 23, Murshidabad 20), say health department data. It further reveals that a total 2,758 dengue ELISA tests had been conducted on Saturday out of which 292 cases were
found positive.