Dengue patients get treatment on the floor due to shortage of beds, amid surge in Covid-19 cases across the country.
Amid deaths of children due to suspected dengue and viral fever in Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad, the five-member Central team of the Health Ministry on Friday conducted a door-to-door inspection and made people aware of the do's and dont's to curb the spread of dengue in the district.
The team after conducting the door-to-door inspection also held a meeting with the district and state health officials.
After the meeting, Firozabad Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Dinesh Kumar Premi told ANI, "Whenever there is an epidemic in a state, a team from the Union Health Ministry visits the state. So, a team of five doctors have come. They are experts in their field. They visit the affected areas and examine the reasons for the epidemic. After examining the causes, they give suggestions on how to curb the disease. This team has been working here for the last five days. We are cooperating with them and providing all possible assistance to the team. We are working together to bring the situation under control. For this, we have been telling people not to fill their coolers for one month."
Speaking after the door-to-door inspection, Dr Sudesh Kumar, Entomologist, Lucknow said, "We have conducted a complete survey and the mosquitoes are found in water and dirt, so the district magistrate here has restricted people from filling water in their coolers for the next one month. We have collected a lot of samples here. We have also got larvae. The people here have been made aware that they should not allow water to accumulate in the cooler or anywhere in their vicinity."
On Thursday, the five-member team from the Uttar Pradesh Health Department conducted tests and found a large number of dengue mosquito larvae, said Dr Awadhesh Yadav, Joint Director of Health Department, who is leading this team. The team arrived in Firozabad from Lucknow on August 30.
"According to the instructions of the government, this team has been sent from Lucknow to the state level. The team arrived on August 30. We saw that the rate was high among children due to severe disease in this district," Dr Awadhesh Yadav had said.
"In fact, children are getting sick only due to mosquito bites. But after this mosquito bite, children are getting very high fever due to which dehydration is happening and platelets are suddenly falling very much due to which the number of deaths has increased," he had further said.
During the investigation, it came to light that it is pointing towards dengue. The samples were sent to King George's Medical University (KGMC).
National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) team has been sent by the Union Health Ministry to investigate deaths of children due to fever in Firozabad, said sources.
41 persons, including 36 children, have died over the past few days in the Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh due to suspected dengue and viral fever. Yesterday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the removal of the chief medical officer of the Firozabad district where many children reportedly died due to suspected dengue and viral fever.
Earlier on Monday, UP CM visited the Autonomous State Medical College to enquire about the health of children who were admitted there and instructed the officials concerned to send special teams to Mathura, Mainpuri, and Firozabad districts to take appropriate steps to contain vector-borne diseases.
(With ANI inputs)
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