UP: Death toll due to dengue, viral fever climbs to 50 in Firozabad
At many as 50 people succumbed to the dengue and viral fever rampant in Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad, official sources said on Friday. With three fresh fatalities, has climbed up. "So far, 50 people have died due to dengue and viral fever. Ten areas -- nine blocks and a Nagar Nigam area -- in the district are affected," Chief Medical Officer Dinesh Kumar Premi said in a statement.
There are 36 active camps in the district and 3,719 people, including those who have fever, are undergoing treatment there, he added.
Amid the rising death toll, District Magistrate Chandra Vijay Singh has made the chief development officer (CDO) the nodal officer of the district to oversee the treatment and other facilities for the patients.
Meanwhile, the district administration and health department found symptoms of malaria and dengue in the samples they had collected. Moreover, teams from Delhi and Lucknow have reached the villages and stationed themselves here. The samples also revealed that diseases like dengue, scrub typhus, malaria, leptospirosis are spreading in the village.
In Koha village, over 50 families fled the village due to the spread of disease.
The district magistrate (DM) suspended three doctors, Dr Girish Srivastava of the Primary Health Centre at Salai, Dr Ruchi Srivastava, a public health expert, and Dr Saurav with immediate effect on Thursday on charges of negligence and warned government doctors of strict action for any negligence in the treatment of the patients.
Ahead of this, Firozabad's Chief Medical Officer Neeta Kulshresth was also removed on Wednesday following the spate of deaths, mostly of children, since August 18 due to suspected cases of dengue.
A senior medical department official said cases similar to those in Firozabad have also been reported from the nearby districts of Mathura, Etah and Mainpuri.
Meanwhile, BJP MLA Manish Asija claimed that on the basis of information available with him, the death toll has climbed to 61. Asija said he is constantly moving about in the area to meet the victims' families and collecting information about the deaths.
Navneet Singh Chahal, Mathura District Collector, told news agency ANI, "Due to the spread of vector-borne disease like dengue or viral fever, we have set up 20 beds in Mathura district hospital and Vrindavan district hospital. Sanitisation and fogging are being carried out by sanitization workers. I request to villagers not to keep stagnating water in pots for a long time and regularly clean the utensils."
(PTI Inputs)
