The district administration has formed rapid response teams to fight dengue in Mysuru. Apart from educating people on the disease, the teams will also search for and destroy mosquito larvae in water containers.
The teams will collect information on people with fever. Those with symptoms of dengue will be shifted to government hospital and their blood samples would be sent to the special laboratory set up at the Health Office for “dengue confirmation”.
Dr. Basavaraj, District Health Officer (DHO), and Dr. Chidambar, District Vector-borne Diseases Officer told reporters here on Friday that 45 dengue positive cases were reported in May and 42 dengue positive cases have been reported so far in June this year. Also, 459 dengue suspected cases were reported in May while 192 such cases have been reported in June so far, they said. They said dengue cases were reported in all the 340 residential areas in 62 wards in the city and a dengue outbreak was reported in three places in the district namely Nanjangud, Hunsur and Mahadevapura.
Dr. Chidambar said that most of the private hospitals were involved in certifying a person afflicted with the disease based on the results of NS-1, IGM and IGG tests. He noted that results of these tests were not accurate. He asked the private hospitals and nursing homes not to be hasty in declaring that a person has the disease based on the tests.
The private hospitals have been instructed to send the blood samples to the District Laboratory where Elisa tests would be conducted through authenticated tests supplied by the National Institute of Virology. The laboratory could test over 1,000 samples a day, Dr. Chidambar said, and added that the results of the blood samples would be given three days after the receipt of the samples. The hospitals have also been enlightened about the stipulated fees to be collected for diagnosis and for other treatments for the disease. They have been warned of dire consequences if found to be creating panic or collecting exorbitant fees from patients for tests and treatment.
Meanwhile, the DHO claimed that no dengue death has been reported in the district so far this year. He added that 334 cases were proved positive while three persons died in 2013. He also said that no dengue death had been reported since 2013 even though 66 cases were proved to be dengue positive in 2014, 382 in 2015 and 582 in 2016.
