Mosquito viruses claim 223 Indian lives

Mosquito-borne viruses dengue fever and encephalitis have killed 223 people in India’s largest state in three months.

Dr Awdhesh Srivastava, head of epidemiology at the Health Directorate in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state, said that 926 cases of encephalitis and 384 cases of dengue fever had been reported since August.

“At least 205 people have died of encephalitis while 18 people have died of dengue so far,” he said.

Alarmed at the spread of the viruses carried by mosquitoes, the High Court in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, has reprimanded city officials for their slack efforts at maintaining sanitation.

Since September, thousands of people have contracted the disease, which spreads in areas where mosquitoes breed in large numbers, such as stagnant pools of water. The epidemic has spread due to the unusually strong monsoon season, which ended several weeks ago.

More than 7,400 cases of dengue have been reported across India, according to the federal Health Ministry.

Symptoms include fever and, in severe cases, some patients suffer bleeding from their internal organs and need blood transfusions. Some die of shock or heart failure.

Sheetal Shukla, four, died of dengue in a government hospital last night.

“She had fallen ill five days back and was admitted in the hospital on Thursday. Despite the best available medication my daughter could not be saved,” her father Rajendra Shukla said.

Dengue has spread rapidly in districts adjoining the national capital New Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur, the two largest cities in Uttar Pradesh.

Dr HP Kumar, the head of the state’s health services, said that several parts of Lucknow were being fumigated to kill the mosquitoes.

“The number of infections could rise as heavy monsoon rains have left pools of stagnant water, which serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Kumar said.

This year, Uttar Pradesh experienced one of the wettest monsoon rains in 25 years. Although the rains are expected to boost the agriculture-based economy, they have also caused floods and led to a spate of mosquito-borne disease such as malaria, dengue and encephalitis.

Monalisa Chaudhry, the chief spokeswoman for the federal Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in the city, said patients were being turned away because the hospital was “finding it extremely difficult to cope with the increasing demand for platelets,” needed to cure dengue.

Local officials in Lucknow are appealing to residents to maintain clean neighbourhoods.

Dengue fever is indigenous to parts of Asia and the Caribbean. The World Health Organisation has estimated that the disease infects nearly 100 million people worldwide each year. About 5% die.