Dengue has reached alarming proportions in West Ben- gal, with the total number of affected people crossing the 50,000 mark. Two more dengue deaths were reported in the state on Monday. With these, the vector-borne disease has claimed around 60 lives since June- July, according to unofficial sources.

As many as 56,707 cases have been recorded to date, with over 10,000 being affect- ed in the last seven days, till Sunday evening, as per sta- tistics available with the health department. Although the health department has not revealed any figures on dengue-related deaths till now, unofficial estimates put the casualties at 60.
On Friday, three patients including two women died of dengue at the state-run Infectious Disease (ID) Hos- pital in Beliaghata. Amit Ghosh, a 31-year-old resident of Ashokenagar in North 24-Parganas died of FINAL TOUCHES
dengue in a rural hospital in the area.

He was suffering from high fever and was admitted to the hospital on Saturday. His condition dete- riorated this morning and succumbed to the disease later in the day.
“Initially, his blood sample tested at the hospital was negative. He had high fever with vomiting and headache. Surprisingly, doctors who administered him an injection said that he died of dengue. How can it be possible when his blood report was dengue-negative,” relatives of the deceased said.

In another case, a 50- year-old woman died of the disease in Suti of Murshidabad district. She was suffering from fever with abdom- inal pain and nausea.
Health department insiders fear that going by the current situation the possibility of the forthcoming Durga Puja festival being held under the shadow of the dengue outbreak cannot be ruled out.

As per health department statistics, the worst affected areas are North 24-Parganas, where the total number of cases as of date touched 11,244, state capital Kolkata is in the second position with the figure touching 6,070 and Murshidabad is in the third place with 5,791 cases.

The other districts where the impact had been serious include South 24-Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah and Malda. At the beginning of this month, a public interest litigation was filed in the Cal- cutta High Court seeking its invention in ensuring prop- er administrative initiatives in arresting further spread of the disease.

The PIL has been filed at a time when the Union health and family welfare ministry has accused the West Bengal health department of suppressing the actual figures relating to the number of affected people or the deaths.

On the other hand, the state government has accused the Union government of denying the necessary finan- cial assistance on this count.