Officials visit slums as fever spreads in Jalgaon

Jalgaon, Apr 15 (UNI) Alarmed by unabating flow of people to hospitals, the civic chief and civil surgeon has undertaken a tour of the city slums, appealing to residents to clean up the area to contain the spread of viral fever, called chiken guniya in local parlance.

It is a type of dengue fever, but unrelated to chicken flu which has also hit this district in northern Maharashtra for three times after the first outbreak on March 14.

Jalgaon Municipal Corporation president Praveen Gedam and civil surgeon Dr A C Patil, after visiting the slums at Tambapura, Katiyafile, Nehrum and Asda Road yesterday, told UNI, five of the 27 samples of mosquitoes from these localities sent for analysis to Pune's National Institute of Virology have confirmed presence of a particular strain of mosquito which causes this type of fever.

Besides rise in the body temperature, the fever causes rashes, joint pain and vomiting sensation, Dr Patil said.

He said the civil hospital has been receiving a daily OPD flow of 60 to 70 patients for over a week now, adding of them an average of 15 people have to be admitted for treatment for four to five days.

Dr Patil said a separate ward for treatment of 'chiken guniya' patients has been set up in the civil hospital. He revealed 40 such patients are also under treatment at Yaval and another 30 at Pachora.

Private hospitals have also been receiving a rush of such patients.

Dr Gambhir Rao said he has been treating about 100 patients per day for the last ten days, adding besides the city patients were also coming from Umala, Tarsod, Nashirabad, Paldi and Kadgone villages. The Middle-class locality at Baliram Peth, too, has been affected by the fever, he added.

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