Abdul Alim :
At least two minor girls died of mosquito-borne dengue virus while undergoing treatment in hospitals in Thakurgaon and Barisal districts in last 24 hours since Saturday morning.
In Thakurgaon, sixteen-year old Opi Rani Rai 16, a teenage college girl, died while she was on way to Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RMCH) from Thakurgaon Sadar Hospital on Friday night.
In Barishal, 10-year old IV grader student Rushra died at Barishal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College and Hospital (SBMCH) at 8:00am Saturday.
With this, according to the non-government data, at least 79 people died from dengue so far this year across the country. Contrarily, the government official data claimed that 29 died this year. But some media reports say, dengue has cost 91 lives.
Over 20,000 cases were reported in the first nine days of August alone, while the number will be about 16,253 for the entire month of July.
The information was disclosed by the Health Emergency Operations Centre and Control Room of the Health Directorate.
According to its estimates, 2,176 patients had been admitted to 40 state-sponsored and private hospitals in Dhaka with the fever in the last 24 hours.
The Control Room also said that the number of patients stood at 38 in January, 18 in February, 17 in March, 58 in April, 193 in May and 1,184 in June.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) official records put the casualties only 29 from January 1 till August 10.
Asked why the number of deaths listed by the DGHS was so low, its Assistant Director Dr Ayesha Akter told The New Nation, “We do not find out dengue fatalities data. A team of Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) collect the information and sample from hospital and patient relatives.”
“We provided IEDCR data to the media and other port folios” she said.
Until Saturday, a total of 36,668 people have been diagnosed with dengue across the country this year and 8,765 of these patients are currently being treated in government and private hospitals, of them, 5,140 are in Dhaka, mentioned the speakers at a regular discussion held at the Health ministry, reports the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) and Control Room(CR) at the DGHS.
