The mosquito-borne dengue has struck again, affecting a doctor of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here and raising the total number of cases reported so far to 87. Fourth-year MBBS student Varun Sandhyal was admitted with dengue to the intensive care unit of AIIMS, the top public sector hospital of the country, on Sep 21.
"Varun was admitted to the ICU but his condition is quite stable now," said Dr Bir Singh, head of the Disease Prevention and Outbreak Response Cell.He however said, that Sandhyal did not contract the vector-borne disease inside the campus as he had gone out of the campus for the past 10 days.
"He had gone out of AIIMS to his relative's place in Ghaziabad for 10 days and must have contracted the disease there. Our campus is free from mosquitoes," Singh, a professor of community medicine, told IANS.
A year ago, an MBBS student lost his life to dengue fever and a few other persons also were affected by it on the AIIMS campus. The cases then drew criticism from the public and raised serious concern over the sanitation level in the institute.
Stressing that the AIIMS was not to be blamed for the present case, Singh said, "The situation has improved drastically in comparison to last year. In this case, the student contracted the disease in Ghaziabad. But don't blame the institute for this."
"The incubation time for dengue fever is about six days. Varun must have got the mosquito bite outside, and his fever started in the campus after the incubation period," he said.
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According to state health authorities, Delhi has reported 86 cases of dengue this year, but they said the situation was under control.
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This year, around 3,500 health officials are monitoring mosquito breeding in the capital city. So far, they have sent notices to 61,421 houses and fined some 13,213 households for breeding mosquitoes.
Source-IANS
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