ONGOLE: In the last four days, three children, including one girl, lost their lives in the Prakasam district due to suspected dengue symptoms. P Swathi (12), belonging to Cheemakurthy town breathed her last on Tuesday night, while she was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Vijayawada. She was suffering from dengue for the past few days. District Medical and Health Officer (DMHO) B Vinodkumar visited her house and inquired about particulars.
On another hand, P Naganjaneyulu (14), a Class-8 student from Kopparam village in Santhamaguluru mandal died with suspected dengue symptoms at a private hospital on Thursday night. Doctors said high fever caused death. Grandhi Eswara Krishna (15), a Class-9 student from Pedda Dornala also died on Thursday while undergoing treatment for suspected dengue.
Not only these three, in the last 15 days, but several patients with symptoms of dengue were also admitted to various government and private hospitals across the district. As per official statistics, from January 2019, 63,000 cases of respiratory tract infections (RTI) have been registered, 34,000 among those were identified to be seasonal viral fevers, 1,800 diarrhoea cases, 402 typhoid, 181 dengue, 135 malaria, 31 gunya fever and eight patients had swine flu.
“Anticipating high number of seasonal fever cases, we alerted field staff across the district well in advance. So far, we have conducted 1,500 awareness programmes, 370 medical camps and have made all necessary medicines available at government hospitals. In all, 90 medical teams were deployed for this purpose. If any village witnesses more than five fever cases, we have directed the field staff to start a medical camp there. We appeal to the public to act spontaneously and clean their surroundings regularly. We request the people to consume only boiled water and observe ‘dry day’ once in a week,” Dr B Vinod Kumar, District Medical and Health Officer (DMHO) told TNIE.
Patients and their families have been burdened by the high cost of treatment and confirmation test.Most of the fever patients are victims of mosquito bite. All 181 confirmed dengue cases in district were registered at Guntur and Ongole Government Teaching hospitals, the number of patients at private hospitals is far more.
Though medical officers of these hospitals confirmed the cases to be dengue, district medical and health department was reportedly not considering them to be official cases.