Dengue kills 6; Union Minister says Bengal not sharing data on cases’ | Kolkata News
3 min readThe Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar has alleged that the West Bengal government has not been sharing data about dengue cases in the state with the Centre for its vector-borne disease control programme.
Speaking in Delhi on Friday, Pawar said, “People have elected the central and state governments to serve them, but the West Bengal government has not given us any information about dengue cases. All other states of the country have uploaded the information on their portals. The data helps the central government send resources to states to deal with dengue and malaria.”
According to the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control’s official website, West Bengal had not shared data on dengue cases in 2018 and 2019 as well. The Union Minister’s allegations come at a time when dengue cases are on the rise in the state.
According to health department officials, six people who were diagnosed with dengue have died, taking this year’s toll in West Bengal to over 30 on Friday. Two patients died at a private hospital in Kolkata while undergoing treatment. One of them was a resident of Salt Lake and the other was from Bagha Jatin, they said on Friday.
Two persons died in Ghatal in Paschim Medinipur, and two persons died in nearby Kharagpur, they added. Meanwhile, a migrant worker who returned from Kerala with symptoms similar to Nipah tested negative, a Health Department official said after receiving the report from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) where his sample was sent. The man is undergoing treatment at the Beliaghata ID Hospital and has a high fever, nausea and throat infection, he said.
Health department officials said that other than Kolkata, three more districts have been identified as dengue ‘hotspots’ in the states. The three districts are North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Murshidabad.
The administration has identified a total of eight ‘hotspots’ in these three districts. In Murshidabad, Suti, Lalgola and Bhagbangola blocks were identified as hotspots, while in Nadia, Ranaghat and Haringhata blocks were declared hotspots. In North 24 Parganas, officials declared Dakshin Dumdum, Bangaon and Bidhannagar blocks as hotspots.
The Murshidabad district health department has directed the concerned officials to take special measures to curb the spread of dengue.
Health officials also said that in Nadia’s Ranaghat and Haringhata blocks, the number of dengue patients stood at 1,461 over the past one week.
Most Read
‘Surviving on bread, fighting for refunds’: Indian students in Canada struggle to find housing, food, jobs
Chandrayaan-3 mission: Dawn breaks on Moon, all eyes on lander, rover to wake up
Chief Medical Officer of Health, Nadia, Jyotish Das said, “The dengue situation in Nadia has improved a lot. Government hospitals are conducting more tests than before. Most of the patients diagnosed with the disease in the district are currently in a stable condition.”
According to sources in the district health department, in North 24 Parganas, around 1,400 people have been infected with dengue in the past one week. State minister and MLA from Naihati in North 24 Parganas, Partha Bhowmik said, “Dengue cases increase every year during monsoon.
As directed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state health department is working in coordination with districts. It would be easier to control dengue if there is more awareness about the disease among common people.”
– With PTI inputs