Patna accounts for 64% of dengue cases

Patna: Dengue continues to spread its tentacles in the state with one official death reported from Gopalganj district this week. Thirteen new cases were officially registered across the state on Saturday, including nine in Patna district.

Bihar tally this year went up to 173, including 111 in Patna alone, which accounted for 64.1% of the total cases in the state till Saturday evening.

The ongoing sanitation workers' strike in urban local bodies areas across the state for the last over one week has added to the woes as stagnant water in several localities in Patna have become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The ongoing Patna metro rail construction work on Ashok Rajpath and in many others areas of the city has led to the accumulation of water, which is favourable for breeding of mosquitoes.

An official associated with the vector-borne disease control office said 90% of the cases in Patna had been reported in the past three weeks. The worst affected is Azimabad circle (29 cases) of Patna Municipal Corporation, followed by Bankipore Circle (23), Kankarbagh (11), Patna City (10), Pataliputra (4) and NCC (4).

Amongst the localities facing dengue brunt are Sandalpur, Biscauman Colony, Musallahpur Haat, areas near Kanti Factory, Chandmari Road, Kankarbagh, Gulzarbagh, Boring Road, Pirbahore and Kumhrar. Though PMC says fogging was being done in the affected areas, New Azimabad Colony resident Abul Lais refuted the claims.

Gopalganj civil surgeon Dr Birendra Prasad said most of the dengue cases were from Mirganj and the deceased was also from there. Another Gopalganj official said Chotu Kumar (20) died a couple of days back while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in neighbouring Gorakhpur.

"Though more people died, but we cannot relate the same to dengue because the standard ELISA test had not been performed," he said.

Media reports claimed three deaths in Nalanda, but civil surgeon Dr Avinash Kumar Singh said the cause could not be verified. "We had sent our team to the house of the deceased, but the family members did not provide medical papers to prove dengue as the cause of their deaths," he said, adding at least 50 cases were reported in Nalanda district recently, with the first official case from Barhari panchayat in Rajgir. He said fogging in the villages was being done, along with spreading of bleaching powder besides providing test facilities in government health institutes.