State Health dept to submit its dengue report to CM soon

Kolkata: The state Health department has prepared a detailed report on dengue which will soon be submitted to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The Chief Minister who is also in charge of the Health department had a concern over the dengue situation in the state. She had instructed the state Health department and the civic bodies to take adequate preventive measures to check the spread of the disease. A report was also sought from the Health department on the exact scenario in the state. Senior Health department officials will soon meet the Chief Minister in this regard.

The dengue expert committee constituted by the state Health department has gone through the reports submitted by various state-run and private hospitals on dengue-related deaths. All these hospitals were asked to share treatment-related documents with the department.

A review meeting was conducted by senior Health department officials at Swasthya Bhavan recently. Various aspects related to the disease had been discussed in the meeting.

A report prepared by the Health department says as many as 20 persons have died due to the disease in the city and its adjoining areas in the current year, while the figure in the state stood at 50. It has been learnt that the toll due to dengue in the state remained at 47 last year. But the number of total patients affected with the disease in the state last year remained slightly higher than this year's figure.

According to a senior Health department official, the total number of dengue cases in the state slightly declined than that of the previous year due to the constant anti-dengue drives carried out by the Health department and also by the civic bodies.

The official also added that out of the total 20 persons who reportedly died due to dengue, around 15 were found to have died due to multi-organ failure. The victims had caught dengue and later their organs stopped functioning.

According to the Health department sources, the nature of the dengue virus is changing as a result of which many persons are getting affected.

It has been found that many of these patients in the city and adjoining areas were affected with 'Den 2' virus which has gained some strength in the past couple of years. The senior Health department officials are of the opinion that the disease will start subsiding from November as winter sets in.