TIRUPATI: AS many as 18 people have died of mysterious fevers in the last 50 days in villages under the Panduru Primary Health Centre in Varadaiahpalem mandal of Chittoor district. But the deaths came to light only on Friday during an inquiry by a Central Government Health team that visited a health camp being run by the district medical and health department for the last 45 days in the area. Going through the records and diagnostic reports, the central team, headed by Dr Pranav Varma, deputy director, and comprising Dr Piyush Jain, associate professor, Dr Gavendra Singh, consultant, and Dr Deepak, AP state entomologist, found something was amiss.
When they enquired with officials of other wings dealing with malaria, and epidemiology, they were provided with a different set of statistics pertaining to deaths in private hospitals in the region.
The number of deaths, according to them, stood at 18 including that of Radhika, a 29-year-old, who had died recently. All of the victims, it transpired, had exhibited similar symptoms, but doctors couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason for their deaths.
Officials of the health department, however, did not record any of the deaths. When the Central team asked them why they hadn’t, they admitted to being aware of the deaths, but did not record them since “they were not caused either by malaria, dengue or swine flu”. Their reasoning left the visiting Central team and district collector Pradyumna shell-shocked.The Central team immediately directed the officials to collect blood samples, urine and tissue samples of the patients visiting the medical camp and send them to the relevant labs in New Delhi for determining the precise cause of the fevers.
Villagers, who were present at the medical camp, were furious upon coming to know of the health department officials’ explanation and apathy. They sought to know how a 12-year-old (one of the 18 victims) had died of multi-organ failure. “He was not aged and fragile. When it is an unnatural death, why didn’t the officials take it seriously and record it?” a village elder fumed.District collector Pradyumna assured them that measures would be initiated and directed officials concerned to set up exclusive wards at the SVIMS, SVR Ruia Government General Hospital and Srikalahasti Area hospitals to treat the patients.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the other departments collated the data of deaths only after the collector pulled up Dr Padmavati, incharge of the Panduru PHC, for failing to provide correct information. During a review meeting three days ago, Dr Padmavati had claimed none had died of fevers under her PHC’s jurisdiction. However, the collector, who came to know of at least three such deaths, pulled her up and suspended her. However, her suspension was revoked