Dengue fever affected a large number of people in Anantapur and Chittoor districts making the officials of the Medical and Health Department (MHD) rush to the disease-stricken villages.
The situation is so alarming that eight persons have reportedly died in Anantapur district in the last 48 hours as the steps taken for vector control have failed to yield the desired result.
Four children, besides a man in Madanahalli village in D. Hirehal mandal of Rayadurgam constituency, succumbed to the disease, according to doctors in Bellary, where the patients were treated.
A child identified as Naveen (10 months) died while undergoing treatment in Bellary after suffering from fever for two days. The child’s father told The Hindu that he took the boy to the local government hospital where the disease was not identified in time and treated.
“My elder child, Narasimhulu (3), was taken to Bengaluru where he died while being treated for dengue in a private hospital. Many children from my village and surrounding villages have been admitted in Bellary with dengue and other fevers,” said Pampapathi.
Obulaswamy (7) of the same village, who was also admitted in a Bellary hospital, died on Saturday due to dengue while Parasuram (8 months) died on the way to another hospital in Bellary. Vannurappa (55) belonging to the same village died with symptoms that appeared to be of dengue. Vaishnavi (7) of Tadipatri town succumbed to it while being shifted from the Anantapur government hospital to Bengaluru.
A doctor working at the Anantapur government hospital Padmaja is also learnt to have succumbed to dengue at the NIMS in Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, the authorities maintained that not a single one of these deaths was attributable to dengue and that they were in contact with the VIMS hospital at Bellary to help the patients admitted there.
In Chittoor, a team of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) along with officials of the Medical and Health Department personnel rushed to various villages in Varadaiahpalem mandal, which had been reeling under viral fevers and had registered 12 deaths since September.
A 23-year-old youth succumbed to suspected dengue at Karipakkam on Sunday. During the last one month, the villages of Battalavallam, Rachakandriga and Karipakkam in the mandal had been hit by a series of casualties, including suspect cases of dengue.
The death of a girl at Battalavallam last month led to panic in the region, forcing the district administration to arrange emergency medical camps there.
Medical camps
District Surveillance Officer (infectious diseases) Annareddy Sudarsan said the IMA team had conducted emergency medical camps at the vulnerable hamlets.
“Over three hundred villagers were tested on Sunday. Blood samples were collected from the suspect cases of dengue and viral fevers. A massive sanitation drive was also undertaken at all the vulnerable villages apart from doing water-testing to detect contamination if any,” he said.
