India's health secretary described a continuing outbreak of dengue fever as
serious as the death toll rose and thousands of people reported ill at
overwhelmed hospitals.
Indian Health Secretary P.K. Hota appealed for calm after 3,331 cases of the
mosquito-borne virus were reported across the country and the death toll
increased from 40 to 49 in two days.
"The situation is serious," Hota told a news conference.
"Difficult times are upon as in the past seven days the number of dengue
cases have gone up," he said, adding that it was likely to rise further until
cool weather arrived in early November.
Chaotic scenes were played out at hospitals across the capital, one of the
worst hit areas, where 19 people have so far died.
Thousands of people suspected of having the virus were crowding New Delhi's
premier hospital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where
5,670 have been screened since Tuesday, officials said.
Eighty-two new patients were admitted to AIIMS on Saturday taking the number
of cases to 825, an official said.
"Only those who need emergency medical attention are being admitted," said
another official, Anil Sharma.
"We are facing a severe manpower and resource crunch as suspected dengue
patients are pouring in from all over to AIIMS but we don't have infrastructure
to deal with this situation," said Sharma, a doctor at AIIMS where one medical
student died of the disease earlier this week and more than a dozen of his
colleagues remain stricken.
AIIMS spokesman Shakti Gupta said: "The health ministry must ensure that
other city hospitals are also pressed into service to handle this dengue
deluge."
Scuffles broke out at overcrowded Safdarjung Hospital where people were also
queuing for diagnosis and treatment.
"I have been standing in the queue with my handicapped son since 5:00 am and
we have been waiting more than seven hours," shouted one man in the line, Umesh
Gujjar.
A dengue outbreak in the capital claimed more than 400 lives in 1996 when
10,000 people fell sick. There is no specific treatment or vaccine against the
illness but early detection can improve chances of survival.
The illness is transmitted to humans through the bites of infected Aedes
aegypti mosquitoes and causes a severe, flu-like illness and internal bleeding.
Similar chaotic scenes were reported in the northern city of Jaipur, the
Press Trust of India reported.
Meanwhile, B. K. Chaturvedi, India's cabinet secretary, urged "people to act
as health constables" in a bid to stop breeding of the mosquitoes in collected
pools of water.
"People are burning whatever they consider is a possible mosquito breeding
place or are randomly spraying insecticides into drinking water tanks, houses
and offices," said Uday Ekka, a resident of the eastern city of Ranchi.
