Central team to visit Kerala as fever toll mounts to 173

Thiruvananthapuram, July 13 (UNI) A five-member expert medical team from the Centre will visit Kerala tomorrow to review the situation in the context of chikungunya outbreak even as death toll from viral fever rose to 173 today.

Talking to newspersons here, State Health Minister P K Sreemathy said the worst-affected districts of Pathanamthitta and Kottayam reported 82 and 79 deaths respectively during the last six months.

However, the Minister clarified there was no cause for anxiety as the number of suspected chikungunya cases had come down considerably in recent days after the government undertook a series of preventive measures.

Ms Sreemathy said the Government had sought assistance from the Centre to tackle the situation arising from viral fever outbreak in seven districts of the State.

The five-member expert medical team would also include a microbiologist.

The Central medical team, which visited the State twice earlier and took blood samples from patients, had confirmed the State to be under the grip of chikungunya, she said.

Claiming the number of chikungunya cases were very low compared with the previous year, the Health Minister said the total number of confirmed cases between January and July 12 this year were only 19,031 as against 70,000 cases reported in the previous year.

In June, the number of suspected chikungunya cases were very high as Kottayam reported the highest number of 6,021 patients followed by Pathanamthitta with 2,516, she said. From July till date, there were only 242 cases reported from Kottayam and 129 in Pathanamthitta.

The Government would provide Homeopathic and Ayurvedic medicines to all the patients free of cost. This would cost the Government Rs 3.30 crore.

Besides, it was also decided to provide free ''food-kits'' to the affected patients for a week as they could not attend work even after they recovered, she added.

UNI