Four more die of dengue

Four more people died of dengue on Tuesday as the mosquito borne viral disease spread over 60 districts besides the capital with hospitalisation of at least 15,369 dengue patients throughout the country.

The government’s data says eight people died of dengue so far this year, but unofficial reports show the death toll reached 51, including 10 in Dhaka Medical College Hospital alone.

With the dengue infections soaring, the government on Tuesday cancelled the leaves of all officials of health ministry on Tuesday.

‘The leaves of officials involved in health services have been cancelled,’ said Cabinet Division’s acting secretary (coordination and reform) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after a meeting at the secretariat.

Cabinet secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam chaired the meeting on dengue and flood situations.

Later on the day, health ministry in a release said the leaves of all officials and staff under the ministry has been cancelled due to dengue and flood.

The ministry opened a dengue monitoring cell to monitor the dengue situation in the country and people were asked to send their complaints related to dengue to 01314-766069, 01314-166070, 02-47120556, 47120557 and to <[email protected]>

DMCH assistant director Nasir Uddin told New Age that the health ministry deputy secretary Nurul Amin’s wife, Farzana Hossain, and Wari resident Liton Hossain, died of dengue on Tuesday.

With them, the deaths caused by dengue rose to 10 at DMCH, he added.

Two more people — Aslam Khan, 24, of Barishal and Mohammad Sohel, 18, of Pirojpur — died of dengue at Barishal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital on Tuesday, said Bakir Hossain, director of the hospital.

Health Services health emergency and control room’s Tuesday data showed that the dengue spread to 60 districts and at least 15,369 patients were hospitalised including 1,845 at different districts this year.

In the past 30 days of July, at least 13,182 dengue patients were hospitalised.

On Tuesday, at least 4,408 dengue patients were under treatment at different hospitals including the newly admitted 1,335 in the last 24 hours.

Among them, at least 3,561 dengue patients were in hospitals in the capital and 847 at hospitals across the districts.

The hospitals in the capital were grappling with the dengue patients as at present at least 679 dengue patients are taking treatment at DMCH, 299 at Mitford Hospital, 266 at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, 216 at Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital, 247 at Kurmitola General Hospital, 253 at Mugda Medical College Hospital and 121 at Dhaka Shishu Hospital.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University vice-chancellor said at least 96 dengue patients were under treatment at the university hospital on Tuesday with 12 in the intensive care unit.

The hospital had to open a separate dengue unit to tackle the crisis. In the last five days, Kanak said, at least 5,000 dengue patients visited the hospital but 177 of them were admitted and rest of them took treatment at the outdoor.

BSMMU virology department conducted a study on dengue recently.

On their findings, virology department chairman Saif Ullah Munshi said the hospital diagnosed 6129 suspected dengue patients and found 1278 of them to be dengue positive in between January and July 25 this year.

People of the 16-30 age group are more infected with dengue. The cases of NS1 positive were 26 per cent, 6 per cent were IgM positive and 5 per cent were IgM+IgG positive, he said.

Saif said the presence of all four serotypes of dengue were present in the dengue cases at the BSMMU hospital.

Another concern is that, Saif pointed out, the study collected samples of 72 dengue infected patients randomly and 48 of them were found infected by more than one serotype of dengue.

Among them, 13 were infected by DN2 and DN3 serotypes, 18 were infected by DN2 and DN4 and 18 were infected by DN1 and DN3.

Patients with several serotypes become critical. They suffer haemorrhage, plasma leakage and organ damage.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net