A 12-year-old girl died dengue at the Institute of Child Health, Egmore in Tamil Nadu.
This is the third such death in the city in the last few days. While eight-month-old Lohit of Maduravoyal died on Sunday, six-year-old Mahalakshmi from Mogappair expired on Monday, The Times of India reported.
The victim, Prithika, was brought to the emergency ward of ICH on Wednesday after nearly five days of high fever and body ache, the report added. “She was very sick. She had already developed multi-organ failure and died within a few hours,” said a senior doctor.
Greater Chennai Corporation officials have informed that there was a system in place to control dengue. “In the case of Mahalakshmi, we visited her home three days before her reported death. In our register we had crossed out her name as well after her parents stated that she did not have fever and it was her younger brother who suffered from fever. Her mother is a pharmacist and she gave them medicines on her own. The brother was later referred to the ICH by us,” said P Madhusudhan Reddy, deputy commissioner (health).
Vector control measures have been initiated already, as informed by public health authorities. About 1% of the population is likely to have fever, mainly seasonal flu, at any given time. This figure goes up to 1.5%-2% in monsoon and winter when the incidence of dengue, leptospirosis, enteric fever, scrub typhus, malaria and H1N1 also goes up.
“Children are usually the first victims because they have lower immunity and they get better exposure to vectors compared to adults,” said ICH director Dr K Jayachandran. Reddy said the city was divided into 2,400 sectors and 3,000 workers deployed to visit every home where a fever case is reported. Besides, there three people in each ward for fogging and spraying.
Fines are being collected in the state from residents for violating health norms and since January, the corporation has collected Rs 30 lakh in fines from residents whose houses were found to be breeding spots. It has been conducting fever camps using urban public health officials to create awareness.
“The state had requested Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka to share real-time details of fevers and vector borne diseases through an online portal to help control cross-border cases,” Public health director Kulandaisamy told TOI.
Comments
0 comment