Mumbai, August 12
Health authorities in Mumbai, Thane, Panvel, Kalyan-Dombivli and nearby rural areas have begun door-to-door surveys to detect people suffering from water-borne diseases, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said here today.
Deshmukh’s statement came after authorities reported a surge in the number of people coming down with severe fever.
More than 440 persons were admitted to hospitals from Thursday night till this evening, officials said. More alarmingly, the number of cholera cases being reported is increasing from some of
Mumbai’s hospitals. Doctors and other paramedics brought in from Pune and Aurangabad have been seconded to local health officials and sent on door-to-door visits across the city, officials said.
Around 200 such teams are being formed and the entire city would be covered in the next few days, officials said.
Medical and nursing students have been pressed in to collect blood samples and collate data.
Visiting civic hospitals in Mumbai to oversee the condition of the patients, Deshmukh said doctors and other health personnel were being brought from various parts of the state to cope with the rising number of patients in the city and its surrounding areas.
As many as 3,000 persons have been admitted to private and public hospitals with fever and symptoms of several water-borne diseases following the record flooding in the region late last month.
The official death toll in Mumbai and its surrounding areas has now been put at 90. However, unconfirmed reports from the ground put the toll much higher. Deshmukh continued to deny his own Health Minister Vimal Mundada’s claim of an epidemic of leptospirosis in the city.
Deshmukh said declaration of an epidemic would cause panic. “There is no epidemic here. Everything is under control,” Deshmukh insisted.
