CM Adityanath visits Zika-hit Kanpur, reviews situation

LUCKNOW:  With Zika infection tally breaching the 100-mark, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday visited the worst-hit Kanpur and spoke to family members of the patients besides reviewing the containment efforts.

As many as 106 people have been diagnosed with the viral infection in the state so far with first case coming to light at Chakeri Air Force Station in Kanpur on October 23. The CM assured the people of Kanpur of taking all the measures to stop the spread of the virus. He said that of the 106 positive cases detected so far, 17 patients have already recovered. Five municipal wards of the city are in the grip of the virus, said Yogi.

He urged Kanpur residents not to panic as the district administration, health department and municipal authorities have been strategically working to increase surveillance, sanitisation and investigation in the affected areas.

“Our team is identifying symptomatic people and providing them with medicine kits,” he said, adding that the remaining patients would recover soon. A senior health official in Kanpur said around 100 teams are deployed in the city for source-reduction, 100 teams for home-sampling and additional 15 rapid response teams (RRT) to check the virus’ spread. “The source-detection teams visited 3,777 houses on Tuesday taking the cumulative tally to 40,238,” he said. The official further said relatives of the patients were under the surveillance.