Dengue has claimed eight lives since January 1 this year, said the Gujarat government confirmed. However, based on data provided by Ahmedabad and Jamnagar municipal authorities, who have reported eight and 11 deaths respectively, the tally looks flawed.
This discrepancy in numbers raised serious questions about the authorities who are responsible for dealing with dengue, The Times of India reported. Dengue shock syndrome and dengue encephalitis are some of the serious complications among others.
Jayanti Ravi, principal secretary of health and family welfare, said in comparison to last year’s data, there has been a 48.3 percent increase in communicable diseases this year. Between January 1 and October 14, 2019, there have been 5,961 dengue cases and 75,932 suspected dengue cases, government officials said. The National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, said that till May this year Gujarat did not report a single dengue death.
The situation is even worse in Jamnagar as hospital authorities said that 250 dengue patients are currently under treatment and these include 12 doctors and nursing staff members. The report also said that 11 people have died in the city since September, of which seven deaths have been reported in the past one week alone. These deaths have been confirmed by the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation (JMC) officials.
In Ahmedabad, after 17-year-old medical student Milcy Sheth succumbed to dengue on October 5, two more deaths — a 27-year-old youth from Vasna who died in SVP municipal hospital and a 13-year-old boy from Lambha were reported to have died in LG hospital.
Mentioning a similar trait in the disease between last year and this year, a senior state government health official confirmed that out of the four dengue viral strains, Dengue serotype 2 and serotype 3 are dominant strains — which is leading to more complications. Another official who said a recent research from Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore has discovered that dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV2) changes its shape through mutations in ‘Envelope’ protein which helps it evade therapeutics
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