Dengue has claimed lives of two children in a week in Chittoor district, even as the number of positive cases has crossed 500 mark.
According to the District Medical and Health Department, the figure includes the cases registered at the SVRR Government Hospital at Tirupati and Christian Medical College (CMC) Hospital at Vellore in Tamil Nadu, adding that the number would be a couple of hundred more, if the patients undergoing treatment in various hospitals in Bengaluru are included.
District Malaria Officer Dosa Reddy said a 7-month-old male child died of dengue in Punganur mandal on Thursday and a 12-year-old girl also faced the same fate in Valmikipuram mandal a week ago. He attributed the cause of the deaths to negligence by the family members, saying that both the children were taken to quacks for treatment. “Despite the awareness massive campaign, people in rural areas are approaching quacks,” he said.
Negligence of health officials alleged
At a time when the district administration is on its toes to curb the spread of dengue, family members of some of patients from Madanapalle division alleged negligence of the filed level heath staff in discharging their duties.
They said that on several occasions, when patients approached public health centres in their respective areas, the paramedical staff were advising them to go to Bengaluru, instead of extending them the needed healthcare. Irregular attendance of medical officials at the PHCs is forcing them to take the patients to quacks, they said.
Taking a serious view of this, District Medical and Health Officer (DM&HO) K. Koteswari said: “Such negligence will not be tolerated. Heath officials will be taken to the task for dereliction of duty.”
Meanwhile, field level staff complained that the inspection of vulnerable areas by DM&HO was confined to certain mandals only and no senior officer had been deployed to monitor the situation.
Collector Siddharth Jain said that all municipalities in the district had been sanctioned Rs. 50,000 each to carry out anti-larval operations. He advised that patients with dengue symptoms be taken to the fever cells set up at the government and private hospitals.
Despite the massive awareness campaign, people in rural areas are approaching quacks
- Dosa Reddy,
District Malaria Officer
