While the top brass of the government is squabbling over ‘Home’, the silent killer, dengue, is stalking many in majority of the districts in the state.
According to available data,the worst-affected districts are Thiruvananathapuram, Health Minister V S Sivakumar’s district, and Kottayam, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s home district. As per the numbers of the Integrated Diseases Surveillance Project, the month of May had 2.47 lakh out-patients and 12,825 in-patients suffering from fever in various hospitals across the state. Unofficial figures touch a staggering five lakh.
Official records state there are only 1,035 confirmed dengue cases and seven deaths. The month also saw a nearly 10-fold increase in the average monthly number of fever cases. Most of the hospitals in Kottayam are swarmed with people suffering from fever and the blood banks are finding it difficult to cope with the rising demand for blood platelets.