Dengue cases flood in from Chengalpet, toll touches 27

The dengue outbreak across Tamil Nadu is fast taking scary proportions. The total death toll this year due to dengue is 27. This includes two deaths on Tuesday in Chengalpet district.

On Tuesday alone, 109 patients with fever were admitted to various hospitals in Trichy district, and are being tested for dengue. In Madurai, 1,046 positive dengue cases have been reported till September and all of them were cured. Out of the reported cases, 245 were reported in August and 167 in July.

In Coimbatore, the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital has been admitting around 40 to 50 suspected dengue patients on a daily basis. There have been at least 15 deaths due to suspected dengue since July , but only four deaths were due to confirmed dengue virus.

District administrations are also working on a war footing to fight the deadly outbreak. The Trichy district administration appealed to the people on Tuesday to cooperate with stakeholders to prevent incidences of dengue. "A total of 22 patients have been diagnosed with dengue in Trichy district as per the report of the health department on Tuesday. We have intensified measures to reduce mosquito breeding sources in the city and rural parts of the district," Trichy district collector K Rajamani told reporters on Tuesday .

Trichy corporation area witnessed 14 cases of dengue while the rural areas had eight cases. The municipality and town-panchayat areas had one case each, said the collector. Even though only 22 patients were diagnosed with dengue in the district, the government hospitals and private hospitals in the district witnessed a total of 109 cases of various types of fever as per Tuesday's report of the health department. Of the 109 patients, 80 are residents of Trichy district and 29 belong to the neighbouring districts - Karur, Ariyalur, Perambalur and Pudukkottai. All of them were treated as in-patients.

The Madurai district administration has deployed 900 additional workers for dengue prevention drive in the district and has warned of disciplinary action against officials if they are found erring in their duty.

Speaking to media persons on Tuesday , collector K Veera Raghava Rao said the district had seen a surge in the number of cases in July and August, but it came down in September due to intensive prevention activities. Fever surveillance was being done throughout the district and if positive dengue cases were reported, intensified prevention activities, including door-to-door surveillance and source destruction, were being carried out. The public health department is conducting special medical camps in places where fever cases were reported, he said. Nurses were continuously monitoring the areas under their care and mass cleaning activities are being carried out.

The Madurai collector said that all government hospitals are well-equipped to tackle dengue and most of the recent deaths reported due to fever were because of late admission to government hospitals, after prior treatment in private hospitals. Private hospitals were also being monitored for fever cases.