No Dengue deaths in Telangana in 2017!

The Dengue story

While there is now a hue and cry over the death of a 7-year-old dengue patient at Fortis Hospital in Gurugram after it allegedly let the girl die even as the bill shot up to Rs 15 lakhs, there is another story that media outlets don't write or show.

How would you take it if Haryana government reports show that out of  4339 confirmed dengue cases reported in 2017, only one patient died!

This is the official report the Haryana government sent to National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) as on 3rd December. 2017.

Everything fake is not Chinese but it's definitely all government reports pertaining to Swine flu and Dengue. It's done by all states irrespective of which government is ruling or the ideology that party believes in.

It is inconceivable to believe that for a country of 1.3 billion people, only 225 people died out of dengue in 2017. 

Latest NVBDCP data shows that Tamil Nadu leads in Dengue deaths in the country with 52 deaths, followed by Kerala (36), Maharashtra (34), Uttar Pradesh (28) and West Bengal (19). 

The good news (it's shocking for me) for the government - which does not spend even two per cent of GDP on health - is that around a dozen states reported zero Dengue deaths in 2017, according to official records. 

They include Telangana (biggest surprise!), Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim, Tirupara, Uttarakhand & Chandigarh.


In fact, unofficially the dengue death toll in larger states like Telangana could have easily crossed 3 dozens in 2017 as per a conservative estimate.

Even it would be a slur to call it tip of the iceberg when it came to the Dengue induced mortality figure dished out by government agencies as controlling mosquito menace is the least on the priority of every government.




 The strategy

The strategy followed by all governments is simple: don't report any death to save the skin of private hospitals. Though dengue is a notifiable disease, no hospital bothers to notify it to health authorities.

In fact even in the Fortis hospital case, the Haryana Government realised that they did not notify the case to them. The negligence amounts to violation of Section 188 of the IPC (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant.

Well, who cares.