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The worst is over for Mumbai
Hospitals are reporting fewer fresh admissions as outbreak of deadly post-floods diseases shows signs of abating.
Hospitals in Mumbai reported fewer admissions of new patients on Monday as the outbreak of deadly post-floods diseases such as leptospirosis and dengue showed signs of abating.
Authorities in the government-run hospitals say the situation is likely to become completely normal over the next few days with the end of the incubation period for most of the waterborne diseases.
Up to 170 people have died in the past 10 days, most of them from the densely populated city suburbs worst affected by July's floods, of leptospirosis, dengue, malaria and gastric diseases.
Hospital sources, however, say that the actual death toll could be much higher as most of the casualties in private hospitals have not been reported to the civic agencies struggling to contain the outbreak.
"The panic rush of residents to hospitals has stopped now as 21 days' incubation period for the waterborne disease has come to an end," said an official of the KEM Hospital in the northern city suburb of Parel.
"The worst is clearly over and now we expect the situation to normalise in the next couple of days. The number of patients being discharged from hospitals is more than the new cases getting registered," added the official.
"We, however, are still telling people to exercise caution and take all necessary measures to avoid waterborne diseases. They still shouldn't avoid even mild symptoms of any infection."
Seema Malik, chief medical officer of Bhabha Hospital in northern city suburb of Bandra, said most people were coming out for medical care out of a sense of caution than panic.
Despite adding extra beds, most of the badly equipped 16 civic hospitals in the city found it hard last week to cope with the rising number of patients who needed urgent medical care to treat waterborne diseases.
Several patients were accommodated on the floors of the hospital corridors. Absence of state-of-the-art blood testing facilities and medicines had also compounded the problems for the patients.
Over 4,000 patients had been admitted to hospitals with complications arising out of leptospirosis and dengue even as the government played down the fear of an epidemic in the megalopolis of 15 million people.
The disease outbreak badly affected middle class areas like the northern suburbs of Bandra, Andheri, Santa Cruz, Virar, Kurla, Thane and Kalyan -- all of them thickly populated.
Most of these areas had come under five to 15 feet of water following torrential rains that pounded the city last month, killing at least 450 people.
