The Times of India 27.08.2014
The big scare: BBMP’s dengue panel hardly met
BANGALORE:
The city may be in the grip of dengue fear with scores of cases having
been reported, but the BBMP committee tasked with vetting causes of each
fatality and follow-up action has hardly worked since 2013.
In
fact, there are doubts as to whether the dengue death review committee
was constituted last year, and if yes, who its members were.
Dr
Manoranjan Hegde, chief nodal officer of BBMP’s mosquito control
programme admitted to TOI that the committee never met last year but did
not explain the reasons.
According to guidelines issued by the
government of India, each district must have a dengue testing lab and a
dengue death audit committee.
The committee has to find the
cause of every dengue death and zero in on the larvae sites that were
the reason for the victim getting the disease.
Besides, the
committee has to take up larvae source reduction drive and create
awareness among the public about dengue control and hygienic
surroundings.
According to the National Vector Borne Disease
Control Programme, there were only 12 death deaths in Karnataka last
year, while the number of positive cases stood at 6,208. Doctors,
however, say the cases are under reported.
Dr Prakash Kumar B
G, joint director of the National Vector-borne Disease Control
Programme, Directorate of Mosquito Control, department of health and
family welfare, said the BBMP had conducted a dengue death review
meeting in March 2014. “A death audit was conducted in the meeting,” he
said refusing to give any details. No preventive measure: Cardiologist
Dr Ramana Rao said BBMP has been showing lethargy and inactivity in
handling dengue cases, and its prevention. “A meeting alone would not
have done much, but that should have been a major step to prevent
dengue,” he pointed out.
Referring to number of dengue cases,
he said, “It looks like the virus has undergone a mutation and it is
less threatening this year due to strains having become weaker. It is
seen in the symptoms and thus dengue, in most instances, is not turning
out to be fatal like it was last year.” Slamming the civic body’s
apathy, Dr Rao said, “It is sad to see that the BBMP is doing nothing
about mosquito control, eliminating places of mosquito breeding and
towards uncollected garbage,” said Dr Rao. It’s shocking that the dengue
death review committee did not meet even once last year. The lack of
transparency and reluctance to share information about the panel only
makes matters worse.
It’s high time civic authorities woke up
to the deadly disease and took steps to not only prevent it, but also to
review deaths caused by it to stop its spread.
