MUMBAI: The deadly dengue sweep across the city continues, with a 35-year-old Khar resident and a 14-year-old girl succumbing to its complications in the last 48 hours. A death that occurred 19 days back too came to light, taking Mumbai’s toll due to the mosquito-borne disease to 15 this year. Of these, eight have died in November alone.
While Vijay Bhosale (35) died at Holy Family Hospital, Bandra, at 4.30pm on Wednesday, BMC’s chief epidemiology officer Dr Mangala Gomare said the 14-year-old died in civic-run KEM Hospital, Parel, on Tuesday. “The girl was visiting from UP,” said Dr Gomare, adding her death would not be counted in Mumbai’s toll.
Incidentally, a dengue-related death that occurred in a Ghatkopar hospital on October 31 has come to light. Chembur resident Khusboo Ansari (34) was admitted to two other hospitals before succumbing to dengue’s complications at Aashirwad Heart Hospital.
BMC officials refused to elaborate on the deaths, saying they would give out comprehensive figures after a six-member investigation committee meets in a day or two.
“We have confirmed 10 deaths due to dengue in the city this year. There are several others that have been notified to us, but we will talk about them only after our committee establishes that dengue was the cause of death,” said Dr Gomare.
The toll in Mumbai thus stands at 15, according to the BMC. While the BMC has confirmed that 10 deaths were due to dengue this year, the remaining five have been classified as deaths due to “suspected dengue”.
The BMC has been attacked for not coming clean on the extent of dengue’s assault on Mumbai. Its public health department gives out weekly health reports collated only from BMC’s hospitals, keeping mum on the dengue positive reports sent from private hospitals.
On Tuesday, its latest health report stated that 41 patients in its hospitals had tested positive for dengue in the second week of November. In October, BMC admitted that 4,000 Mumbaikars were suspected to have dengue.
Private hospital doctors, meanwhile, have been reporting dozens of cases a week. “Dengue is still around, though the number of cases coming in daily is lower than that a week back,” said a doctor from Mahim.
On Wednesday, Vijay Bhonsale who lived in a chawl in Khar Danda and worked with a private housekeeping firm, died at Holy Family Hospital, Bandra, after being admitted there around midnight on Friday. His neighbour and friend Samir More said, “A local doctor with whom Vijay was seeking treatment for fever advised him to check for dengue. The test came positive around Friday afternoon and Vijay’s condition seemed to worsen,” said More. Bhonsale was taken to Bhabha Hospital in Bandra around 7 pm. “But he started vomiting blood within a few hours and had to be rushed to Holy Family thereafter as he needed a ventilator,” said More, adding that Bhonsale never regained consciousness. Bhonsale is survived by a three-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter.
Holy Family Hospital’s Dr J Jadwani, who treated Bhonsale, said, “He came to us in a critical condition. He had dengue as well as encephalopathy,” said Dr Jadwani.
In the dengue death on October 31, Ansari got admitted to two local nursing homes with high fever and bodyache on October 27. “As her condition worsened at the second hospital, we were told to shift her to a facility that had a ventilator,” said her husband Ainul Ansari. She was then taken to Aashirwad Hospital in Ghatkopar late on October 30. She died six hours later.
Cardiologist Dr Bhaskar Shah, who owns the hospital, said, “She had tested positive for dengue and we reported her death to BMC.”
