Panic returns to dengue epicentre Dum Dum, toll 5

KOLKATA: The

dengue

toll has climbed to five in Kolkata with two deaths being reported from Dum Dum last Sunday, including a 27-year-old homemaker. The second victim is yet to be identified.

Alarmingly, both hailed from

Dum Dum’s Madhugarh

, the epicentre of the dengue epidemic last year that claimed more than a hundred lives. The official death toll in 2016 was just 45, though.

Madhugarh has remained panic-stricken since the deaths last Sunday. The disease has already affected more than 100 in the area and led to four deaths in the past one month. The same area in Dum Dum’s Purba Sinthi Lane had seen hundreds aff-licted with dengue last year. This year, too, the disease has struck with a vengeance. Almost every home in Madhugarh has a patient.

Seven-year-old Suman Basu, draped in a white cloth, peeped out of the door on Thursday afternoon. Heavy showers had left portions of the road leading to the house under water. Suman’s aunt Nipa (27), who was diagnosed with dengue last Saturday, died the following morning at a hospital in Beliaghata.

Sujata Basu, sister-in-law of Nipa who died of dengue last Sunday, said: “Her eight-year-old son Rupam is also suffering from dengue. So, he could not perform her last rites. Rupam was admitted to hospital and was discharged on Wednesday.” Nipa’s platelet count had dropped to 50,000 on Saturday night and her blood pressure dropped gradually till she breathed her last on Sunday morning.

Barely 50 metres away is a lane which reported one of the earliest outbreaks of dengue last year. “This year too, we had seen an outbreak immediately after the rains set in. Every second house in the neighbourhood was affected last year. This year, we had taken all possible precautions. But the disease has come back with an even greater might,” said Shila Roy, a resident. A nurse by profession, Roy herself has been infected this year apart from four other members in the family. Her nephew Kaushik, who has just recovered, had dengue last year as well. According to local medical practitioners, the virus might have been striking with different strains, affecting the same individual twice in successive years. Since an infected person does not develop protective antibody for all strains after a dengue attack, he could be affected next year.

The house next to the Roy family has also reported a case of dengue a week back. A few houses away from her residence on the Purba Sinthi Lane, Manisha Chatterjee, 45 was hospitalized on Wednesday with high fever and nausea. “She has developed rashes, too. We are worried as the rashes seem to be different from the normal dengue rash,” said Ankita, her daughter.

According to Pinaki Dey, a doctor attached to a nursing home at Nagerbazar, rashes are classical signs of

dengue fever

. “So far, I had one patient with rashes this year. What makes it little more complicated is the fact that many of the patients have shown more severity this time,” he said.

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