Salem: In continuing deaths due to suspected dengue fever, four more children - three in Salem district and one in Namakkal district - succumbed to the dreaded fever on Thursday.
The victims included three girl children, all in a day at the Salem government general hospital (GH), besides a teenage boy who lost his life to the fever in neighbouring Namakkal, sources told DC here.
While there has been a steady increase in the fever patients getting admitted to the Salem GH, about 100 out-patients also receive treatment on an average for the fever every day. Besides, the number of in-patients getting treated for various fevers has gone up to 500 at present. The Salem hospital administration has opened a special ward for children to give them intensive care treatment.
The suddenness of the tragic deaths intensified on Thursday, as six-year-old Ilakiya, from Nayakkanpatti, who was admitted for fever three days ago died today at the Salem GH. Similarly eight-year-old Keerthi from Kootathupatti and nine-year-old Abinaya from Omalur also died at the hospital on Thursday.
In the neighbouring district, Saravanan, 17, resident of Kosavampalayam village in Namakkal, who was admitted to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) on October 4, died on Thursday, keeping parents worried on the fate of their vulnerable children.
Dengue first discovered in Chennai
India, the first epidemic of clinical dengue-like illness was recorded in Madras (now Chennai) in 1780 and the first virologically proved epidemic of dengue fever occurred in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Eastern Coast of India in 1963-1964. During the last 50 years a large number of physicians has treated and described dengue disease in India, but the scientific studies addressing various problems of dengue disease have been carried out at limited number of centres, says a study on dengue in India by ICMR and department of microbiology KG Medical University, Lucknow, in 2012.
Dengue virus belongs to family Flaviviridae, having four serotypes that spread by the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes. It causes a wide spectrum of illness from mild asymptomatic illness to severe fatal dengue haemorrhagic fever - dengue shock syndrome (DHF/DSS). The cumulative dengue diseases burden has attained an unprecedented proportion in recent times with sharp increase in the size of human population at risk.
An article published in the IOSR Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences, a 2014 study by the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research, Department of Virology, Chennai and Bharathidasan University Department of Biomedical Science, Tiruchy, has shown the circulation of dengue virus 2 in Chennai.
