A 13-year-old boy died of dengue fever here Wednesday, taking the toll from mosquito-borne disease to 47 in the Indian capital, even as officials maintained that the number of cases had dropped considerably.
Ashish, a resident of Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh, died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He had been admitted to the hospital Oct 16 in a critical condition."His condition was deteriorating as there were fluctuations in the platelet count," said D.K. Sharma, AIIMS medical superintendent.
The death of the young boy was the third dengue death since Sunday. The total number of deaths from dengue has increased to 128 in the country.
"The death cannot be seen as an increase in dengue cases as the boy was admitted a week ago," said D.S. Negi, Delhi's health secretary.
"We think that the number of cases has decreased. Earlier, the average number of patients coming in everyday was 80, but now it has declined to 50," added Negi.
There was little change in the number of new cases reported in various hospitals with 62 fresh cases being admitted since Tuesday, taking the total number of patients to 2,240.
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"We have 30 patients under observation. Earlier, we used to have around 200 people under observation everyday," said Sharma.
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According to health officials, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh continued to report fresh dengue cases.
"We hope that the number of cases in these states would also start declining soon as the state governments were making all efforts to control the disease," said Negi.
Apart from Delhi, dengue cases were reported from Rajasthan (972) followed by Kerala (834), Gujarat (456), West Bengal (675), Uttar Pradesh (513), Tamil Nadu (308), Punjab (586), Maharashtra (582), Haryana (315), Karnataka (92) and Andhra Pradesh (81).
Health authorities were also battling chikungunya in many states, with 188 districts affected by the viral fever. Three fresh cases of chikungunya were reported Wednesday taking the total number of cases in the country to 1,666.
Health officials said 29 chikungunya cases had been reported from Delhi. Among other states, Maharashtra had the highest number of confirmed chikungunya cases (679) followed by Karnataka (294), Andhra Pradesh (248), Gujarat (170), Tamil Nadu (111), Madhya Pradesh (62), Kerala (38), Rajasthan (24) and Pondicherry (9).
Source-IANS
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