Though 20 cases of dengue, confirmed or suspected, are reported from the district on a daily average, it is likely that many cases go unreported to the District Medical Office via the Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP).
The disease surveillance project remains sloppy as most private hospitals do not report notifiable diseases and there is no system in place to integrate whatever is reported by them. Hence, only the cases reported by government institutions across the district get counted as part of the surveillance project.
The IDSP was started with the aim of identifying local outbreak of diseases and initiating measures to check communicable diseases.
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Health workers
According to doctors in the public and private sector, it is likely that the cases reported by private hospitals are also reported by block primary health centres, as health workers in rural areas also manage to get the reports.
At times, even if private hospitals send reports (and the field workers do not report those cases through PHCs), the numbers do not get reflected in the final list prepared due to fear of duplication. The system thus is full of reporting errors, giving a false sense of disease control, and missing out on ground realities.
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Categorisation
Besides this, most cases are categorised as ‘suspected’ when government laboratories do not provide the results. Deaths occurring in such ‘suspected’ cases are not recorded as deaths due to the particular disease. Two deaths that occurred in the district which were under ‘suspected’ cases were never categorised as dengue deaths.
Community medicine experts said in case of outbreak of diseases, it was difficult to test for all cases and people were treated according to common symptoms of the disease. Tests needed to be conducted for people who had co-morbid conditions, said an expert.
As many as 228 suspected cases of dengue and 54 confirmed cases have been reported from the district in the month of June so far. In May, it was 230 suspected cases and 26 confirmed cases.
Leptospirosis cases also seem to be on the rise as 26 suspected and five confirmed cases have been reported this month, while in May it was 14 suspected cases and one confirmed case.