30 more dengue cases in AIIMS: Death toll 17

New Delhi, Oct 6: As dengue shows no signs of abating, 30 more people were admitted to AIIMS till this morning, taking the number of patients afflicted with the viral disease in the hospital to 130.

The dengue death toll in the capital has climbed to 17 with the death of two patients in AIIMS yesterday.

AIIMS doctors said since midnight yesterday more than 500 people were screened in the hopsital's Emergency OPD. More than 4,000 patients have been screened at the OPD since Tuesday.

Only emergency patients are being admitted in the institute as the hospital is struggling to keep pace with a deluge of dengue patients.

''Only those patients who need emergency medical attention are being admitted. We are facing a severe manpower and resource crunch.... Dengue patients are pouring in from all over in AIIMS but the institute does not have infrastructure to deal with this situation,'' said Dr Anil Sharma, member of the Resident Doctors' Association.

AIIMS today launched a 24 hour helpline to create awareness about the disease.

Two patients died in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, (AIIMS) where 99 dengue patients were undergoing treatment, the doctors said.

While 55-year-old Laxmi Narayan, a resident of Bulandshahr, succumbed to haemorrhagic fever, 22-old Dharam Singh, a resident of Delhi's Badarpur area, died yesterday.

Officials have put the total number of dengue cases till 1000 hrs yesterday morning at 673, out of which 409 are from Delhi and the rest are reported from outside.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's two grandsons--Rohan and Madhav-- were on Wednesday diagnosed with dengue fever at AIIMS, Doctors said their condition was stable and they will be discharged in a couple of days.

The worst affected areas from dengue are Najafgarh, Shahdra (North), Karol Bagh, and Central Zones which have reported 58, 50, 46 and 40 cases respectively.

About 130 students and resident doctors from AIIMS submitted a memorandum to AIIMS Director P Venugopal, alleging failure of the administration to check mosquito breeding in the campus.

The memorandum alleged that the death of AIIMS student Raj Kiran was due to the negligence of the management.

''Neither is the death of Raj Kiran or affliction of so many students with dengue a matter of chance. The outbreak of dengue at AIIMS has become an annual affair,'' it said.

Raj Kiran, a seventh semester MBBS student died after suffering from haemorrhagic fever on September 30.

Progressive Medicos and Scientists' Forum spokesperson Dr Vikas Bajpai alleged that AIIMS management's ''callousness had led to the situation in the Institute''.

''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 the Institute,'' 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.

UNI

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