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Health dept finds 35 instances of dengue larvae at police lines
Ghaziabad: The district health department found about 35 houses at Ghaziabad Police Lines that had dengue larvae breeding in their desert coolers. The rapid response
Ghaziabad: The district health department found about 35 houses at Ghaziabad Police Lines that had dengue larvae breeding in their desert coolers. The rapid response team of the health department swung into action after a 40-year-old woman, residing at the Police Lines at Harsaon, died and she was suspected to have had dengue, though tests later proved negative.
The officials also denied that scrub typhus was responsible for the death of a 56-year-old woman recently. Scrub typhus is a disease caused by a bacteria that is spread to people through bites of infected larval mites.
The health officials said they conducted checks for two days at Police Lines and found 35 air coolers that had dengue larvae. The officials said they have served notices in seven instances and have asked them to comply with measures to eradicate dengue.
“Of the 35 instances, respective residents emptied out the coolers while others said they will comply soon. The Police Lines has the official residences of police officers. The 40-year-old woman died of cardio-respiratory arrest and she suffered from septicaemia and typhoid,” said GK Mishra, district malaria officer.
He said in the case of the death of a 56-year-old woman, the physician from a private hospital who attended to her, had declared that she died of scrub typhus.
“We are sending a notice to the physician for declaring the case as one of scrub typhus. This was done on the basis of rapid test (preliminary test) and no confirmatory Elisa test was performed. The notice has been prepared and will be issued on Tuesday. Further, no samples were sent to the district health department. Since the woman has died, we will not be able to ascertain if it was a case of scrub typhus or not,” Mishra added.
Dr Deepak Verma, consultant internal medicine with Columbia Asia Hospital, Ghaziabad said scrub typhus cannot be diagnosed early and it takes about a week for the disease to develop.
“One should maintain good hygiene. People who don’t take bath regularly or who wear dirty clothes for a long time can have higher chances of lice bites. There is a high risk of such diseases in the winter. We should protect ourselves from insect bites. The indications are rashes, fever, headache and back pain,” Verma said.
According to officials, the health department has taken about 150 samples for detecting dengue in patients and found 14 positive cases so far. About 85 notices have also been served to different persons after dengue larvae were found on their premises, they added.
