KOZHIKODE: When Kozhikode district is witnessing an unprecedented dengue fever outbreak, the Kozhikode corporation and various district panchayats are not doing enough to support the initiatives of the health department for source eradication of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes responsible for the spread of the disease.
The district health directorate, with minimum staff strength, has been struggling to cover a large area where dengue outbreak has been reported.
According to Kozhikode Medical College general medicine department, around 700 positive cases of dengue fever were reported in the last four weeks at the medical college alone.
Meanwhile, as per the statistics available with the integrated disease surveillance progra-mme office here, only 178 positive dengue fever cases were detected in the district in June apart from 666 suspected dengue fever cases.
The IDSP only considers the positive cases identified by the government microbiology lab at the medical college. However, the patients who come for treatment are those who confirm their cases in private labs elsewhere.
“We are doing everything possible with our available staff strength. We are conducting sou-rce eradication programme for mosquito control in 16 block panchayats. Meetings are held and awareness classes are conducted,” Piyush Namboodhiri, district surveillance officer, told DC.
Meanwhile, sources said neither Kozhikode corporation nor district panchayats have initiated programmes for dengue fever control in infested areas.
“Local governments are doing nothing even after so many cases have been reported. We are seeing deaths due to dengue fever as well. The primary health centres and community health centres are ill-equipped to handle such cases. There are no doctors to cater to the increased number of patients,” Krishna Kumar, a resident of Mukkam said.
Janamma Kunjunni, chairperson of Kozhikode corporation health standing committee, said that the corporation had launched dengue fever control programmes in all the wards and 21 of the medical centres are well-equipped. “We are fogging the areas and are cleaning up the surroundings. We also have cleaned up the drain-ages. The accusation against corporation is not correct,” Janamma Kunjunni said.
Meanwhile, the medical college is struggling to house all inpatient dengue cases and there are no beds available.
According to the statistics available at the medical college, each of the 7 units at the general medicine department gets an average of 20 positive cases of dengue a day.
