As Dengue Claims 6 Lives in Karnataka, BBMP Continues to Suffer Shortfall of Health Workers

Dengue has killed three more people in Karnataka, taking the death toll due to the mosquito-borne disease to six, and goading the state’s Health and Family Welfare department into taking measures on “war-footing” to provide people protection from mosquitoes.

With the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits alone accounting for over half of the 9,374 cases of dengue cases in the state, an official blamed the administrative body’s poor management due to manpower crunch for the high incidence.

“We have written to the BBMP and also informed the government. The concern is that they do not have enough health workers,” Dr Mahmood Shariff, a researcher at National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme, told The Deccan Herald.

States like Rajasthan, where over 1,300 dengue and malaria cases have been reported this year, have decided to set up rapid response teams and control rooms besides providing free blood tests to curb diseases such as malaria, swine flu, chikungunya and dengue.

A 35-year-old woman from Anjanapura’sGollahali died at the St Johns Hospital of dengue on July 26 while a 37-year-old woman from Vibhutipura, complained of fever and other typical dengue symptoms since July 24 and died on July 30.

The two deaths were reported from Bengaluru Urban district that that has already reported 47 Dengue positive cases.

Dakshina Kannada district, which has recorded 930 dengue cases, saw a second death in July when a 35-year-old male patient died at Kasturba Medical College Hospital of dengue.

The Health department officials had earlier attributed the high incident of dengue cases to sporadic rains, according to the Herald.

The Health and Family Welfare department made details of the dengue deaths public nearly a month after their occurrence.

Dr Shariff attributed the delay to the purportedly lengthy confirmation process. “There is a committee that is constituted to look into deaths. A team visits the house of the patient, sees where he could have travelled in the recent past and examine his medical records. The report is sent from the district officials to the directorate which is assessed yet again before being declared as ‘death due to dengue,’” he said.