Dengue death toll rises to 12

New Delhi, Oct 4 (UNI) The death toll due to dengue has risen to 12 in the national capital with another patient succumbing to the disease in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) even as nearly 500 cases of the disease have been reported so far.

Officials at AIIMS said Bansi, a native of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, died after suffering haemorrhagic fever last evening. He was admitted to AIIMS yesterday morning.

MCD officials said of the total cases reported till October 1, only 280 are from Delhi. However, unconfirmed reports put the total number of cases at 1,000. As many as 10 fresh cases of dengue, caused by Aades mosquitoes which breed in unhygienic conditions, are reported in Delhi every day.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has, over the last week, 'challanned' about 13 hospitals, including Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and the ESI hospital, Modi Hospital, Ganga Ram Hospital, Batra Hospital, the Bhimrao Ambedkar Hospital for not doing enough to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes on their premises, MCD health officer N K Yadav said.

Most of these hospitals were 'challanned' after MCD officials, during an inspection, found stagnant water on their premises.

''The hospitals have been asked to make efforts to curb growth on their premises of possible breeding for mosquitoes,'' Mr Yadav said.

At the prestigious AIIMS, a student -- Raj Kiran-- died on Saturday due to viral fever, while 46 dengue patients have been admitted there, including 20 resident doctors, students and nurses from the institute.

Two students-- Kunal Kumar Yadav and Rohan Khoda-- have been admitted to the ICU and their condition is critical.

AIIMS Director P Venugopal yesterday chaired an emergency meeting of the Heads of departments and discussed the management of patients and ongoing preventive measures. AIIMS Medical Superintendent Dr D K Sharma said more then 1000 patients were screened in the newly set up fever screening Emergency OPD, which is running round the clock.

He said the ongoing preventive measures for stopping the mosquito breeding as well as anti-mosquito measures were intensified.

Last Sunday, the reported figure was 327, which rose to 448, registering an increase of 121 in just one week.

Faculty member and Progressive Medicos and Scientists' Forum spokesperson Dr Vikas Bajpai said Raj Kiran was a victim of negligence by the AIIMS administration. ''At a time when there is an explosion in cases of dengue at AIIMS, most of the senior medical staff of AIIMS casualty has been deputed to organise the Indo-US Summit on Emergency Medicine that is going on at AIIMS,'' he said.

''The emergency services have been virtually left to junior doctors who are not oriented to deal with the outbreak of Dengue,'' he alleged.

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