With yet another death being reported in Hooghly district, the dengue outbreak is spreading across the south Bengal districts. Sonu Choudhury (20), a resident of Telinipara in the Bhadreswar area of Hooghly district died of dengue today at Chandannagar Hospital.

He was admitted to the Chandannagar hospital on 16 November with high fever and pain on joints. Sunidhi Sharma, aged five, hailing from Serampore in the district, died of the mosquito borne fever at Medical College Hospital (MCH) in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The two deaths within a span of only couple of days have created panic among residents in areas like Seramopre, Rishra, Bhadreswar and Konnagar in the district. Locals have pointed fingers at the municipal bodies in these areas for their failure to clear garbage heaped in various localities and clogged drainage systems.

Dengue is also ravaging several areas under the South Dum Dum municipality.

More than 400 people in the municipality have already been affected by the disease. Locals in the municipality alleged that the civic body could not take proper action to prevent the breeding of mosquito Aedes Aegypti, carrier of dengue.

They staged a protest when officials, including Mr Debashis Banerjee, the chairman of South Dum Dum Municipality, visited the affected areas in the civic body today.

Sources in the health department at Swasthya Bhavan said that there have been some changes in the usual places where larvae of Aedes Aegypti mosquito breed.

“Our entomologists visiting different places in the city and district towns have found that domestic premises are becoming breeding grounds for mosquitoes that cause dengue. For instance, empty food packs delivered by online food retailers or local restaurants are found lying scattered inside domestic complexes where the conservancy staff cannot normally reach. These empty food packs lying overlooked for few days can give birth of larvae,” a senior official of the public health wing at Swasthya Bhavan said. “These food packs where water accumulates due to rain are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. We normally find larvae breeding in open stagnant water lying in tubs or containers, potholes, drains etc,” he said.

On Monday, a three yearold baby, Aharshi Dhar of Lake Town area died at the Institute of Child Health (ICH) at Park Circus. She was brought to the ICH with symptoms of high fever, drastic fall in platelet count and blood pressure level and pain in the joints. She was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital on Friday.

Many hospitals in both private and government sector are flooded with dengue patients. For instance, in ICH around 30 children affected with dengue are undergoing treatment. According to official reports, dengue has claimed 23 lives and has affected around 46,000 people in the state so far this year. But the unofficial figure of deaths may well be double.