Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

Three new dengue cases reported

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM June 27. Three new confirmed cases of dengue fever were reported from the city and suburbs today even as containment efforts

launched by the health and civic departments are in full swing.

The three cases were that of a 39-year-old woman from Jagathy, a 67-year-old woman from Chennilode and a three-and-a-half-year-old girl from Kallara.

Nine persons have died of dengue at the SAT hospital since the outbreak of the epidemic so far, while Leptospirosis has claimed two lives.

There are at least 20 dengue-infected children in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the SAT Hospital at present, hospital staff said. About Rs. 30,000 is required to save the life of a person in an advanced state of the infection.

According to official statistics, children have been most affected by dengue. While there have been 108 cases of dengue among children, only 27 adults had contracted the mosquito-transmitted infection.

The maximum number of admissions has been at the SAT Hospital (99), followed by Medical College (14), private hospitals (17), General Hospital (two) and Primary Health Centres (three).

The District Medical Officer, E. K. Madhavan, told The Hindu that there were adequate stocks of paracetamol tablets and fluids to tackle the unprecedented upswing in common fevers.

As of now, the District Medical Store had stocks of over six lakh tablets. On an average, a PHC stocked around 50,000 paracetamol tablets, the DMO said at the conclusion of a personal stock-taking exercise today.

Over the weeks, there has been a stupendous off-take of paracetamol tablets for treatment of viral fevers for which there is only symptomatic management. For instance, given that 10 tablets are given to a fever patient, treating 500 patients would require 5,000 tablets.

A series of medical camps had been launched across the district on a daily basis to check spread of infectious diseases such as dengue, rat fever and malaria, the DMO said.

The district health administration, in cooperation with the district panchayat, will commence a programme to sensitise school children on the need to check the spread of infectious diseases.

The Health Department would also launch a "Total Cleanliness Week'' observance from July 3 in a bid to identify the cause of outbreak of infectious diseases and to effectively frame preventive measures.

Meanwhile, the district panchayat has formulated a Rs. 1 crore project to set up a permanent mechanism to tackle infectious diseases on a war-footing. It has also appealed to the Government to fill up vacant posts of doctors and paramedics or to engage services of practitioners on contract basis.

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