Thiruvananthapuram: The south-west monsoon arrived promptly in Kerala last week, prompting Keralites to reach out for umbrellas and warm clothes, but so has a range of fevers, that have led to a massive rush to hospitals across all 14 districts.
Official figures have put the number of fever-affected people at 15,990 and there were fresh cases of 90 people afflicted by dengue fever on Thursday.
Dengue claimed six lives in the state on Thursday, all of them in Kottayam district. As many as a third of the newly reported dengue cases are from Thiruvananthapuram district.
The death count extended by one more Friday, when an 11-year-old girl, Aditya from Nedumangad in Thiruvananthapuram district, succumbed to dengue fever.
There was more concern when the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association initially announced their reluctance to comply with the health department’s directive for treatment of outpatients in the evening hours, too, but the KGMCTA later changed their stand and agreed to the idea.
The medical colleges in the state are presently overflowing with patients with fever. Medical colleges are considered referral hospitals in the state, but people with even ordinary fevers have crowded medical colleges in the state, putting their operations in jeopardy.
Among all the fever cases, what is particularly bothering the medical authorities are the sustained increase in the numbers of those afflicted by dengue, and small but significant numbers of those who have leptospirosis, Hepatitis A and H1N1. The spread of diseases has come at an inopportune time, considering that schools in the state have reopened this week after summer vacations, and the probability is high that many communicable diseases will be spread through schools.
