Do not underreport dengue deaths, conduct correct audits: Health minister to district officials

Dinesh Gundu Rao held a video conference with Zilla Panchayat CEOs and district health officers to ensure sustained focus on dengue cases across the state.

Bengaluru: Karnataka health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Thursday directed district officials to ensure dengue deaths were not underreported and were audited correctly.

He held a video conference with Zilla Panchayat CEOs and district health officers, at the Vikasa Soudha in Bengaluru to ensure sustained focus on dengue cases across the state.

Addressing the press after the meeting, he said, "The number of dengue cases is not going down; this is not good news for us because we want the cases to come down as much as possible by the next month," he said.

He noted that some districts, such as Chikkamagaluru, Mysuru, and Mandya, are seeing a fall in cases while other districts such as Hassan, Bengaluru, Dharwad, Tumakuru, and Davanagere are seeing a rise, which is a cause for concern.

"Patients have to be followed up on for 14 days until their recovery and we must support the treatment of those who have been severely affected. Nobody should die because of dengue -- that is our primary goal," he said.

Deputy Directors of the health department, along with the minister, the health commissioner D Randeep and the National Health Mission MD Dr Naveen Bhat will be visiting 10 to 15 districts that have been seeing a high number of cases.

Additionally, the minister noted that IISc's ARTPARK is helping the department map hotspots, through the PRISM-H application to help workers in Udupi and Bagalkote to digitally capture larvae reduction efforts. This will be expanded to other districts in time, he said.

District officials have been impressed upon to ensure door-to-door activities are being taken up seriously, adopt what has worked well in districts that are faring better and not limiting efforts to statements on paper.

"We cannot say that no measures were taken. But we informed the officials again today that the intensity of the efforts must not wane. The session was ongoing and floods were occurring, which might have temporarily taken district officials' focus off of dengue," said Dinesh.

37 hotspots in Bengaluru

The minister noted that Bengaluru has 37 dengue hotspots and 50 per cent of active cases are being seen in the city. He has instructed the principal secretary, health commissioner and the BBMP Special Commissioner for Health to hold another meeting on Friday to tackle this.

"We have few ASHA workers in the city. We have asked officials to take the help of paid volunteers, nursing students, NCC cadets, and NGOs as needed."

He added that continuous rains might help bring the number of cases down; consistent fogging efforts will also aid in controlling malaria and chikungunya cases in the city.