West Bengal dengue outbreak: Fudged data, politicking engulfs narrative as state reels from health crisis

Drawing flak for its handling of the dengue outbreak, the West Bengal government has been accused of trying to suppress data. A government doctor alleged in a Facebook post that the state government has issued an “unofficial diktat” to suppress data on the number of dengue cases, The Hindu reported. The doctor also claimed that the authorities forced him not to mention dengue as the cause of death in official documents. [caption id=“attachment_4198293” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] The doctor, who was posted at the Barasat District Hospital in North 24 Parganas district, one of the worst affected districts according to government data, has been suspended for “posting some unverified statistics as well as unfounded remarks in the social media” which was “derogatory” to the state’s health administration, The Hindu report said. The doctor also hinted at several infrastructural lapses as he claimed that 500 people were admitted at the hospital on 6 October and wrote about his struggle to diagnose the patients many of whom were lying on the floor, according to The Hindu report. A section of pathological laboratories, private hospitals and medical practitioners, though reluctant to speak openly, have been complaining in private about mounting pressure to suppress the number of dengue infections or deaths related to the disease. Such incidents, while raises questions about the administrative laxity amid a severe health crisis, also draw focus on the Mamata government’s alleged mishandling of the situation. The state government has, however, denied such reports. “Some people are saying that the details are being suppressed but it is not correct. Many diagnostic centres are conducting rapid tests to identify the disease which is not acceptable. If the tests are done in a non scientific way it is not possible for us to record that,” Chief secretary Malay Kumar Dey clarified. Major health crisis According to a 24 October  _IANS_ report , dengue has claimed 34 lives in West Bengal and infected 18,238 persons. The state health department has not released any dengue data since 4 October, a report in Scroll quoted National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme joint director Kalpana Barua as saying. However, the local reports claim the numbers are much higher. The Scroll article states that various outlets have collated numbers from government and private nursing homes, hospitals and municipalities which estimate that between 24 October and 8 November alone,  104 people have died due to dengue and unknown fever. Politics over dengue deaths Meanwhile, the Opposition parties have been alleging that the Mamata Banerjee government is trying to suppress the number of deaths due to dengue. West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Sunday  wrote to Union Health Minister JP Nadda seeking the Centre’s intervention. He alleged that test kits were being smuggled out to private health centres due to “corruption of the ruling party”. According to the letter, the estimated dengue cases so far have “crossed 50,000”, although the government only “accepted a meagre number of 18,000 of those diagnosed as dengue virus infected” and declared that 34 persons have died to date, of which only 18 were confirmed dengue cases. Ghosh also alleged that the state health system had completely “broken down” and was unable to combat this manace and the danger from this epidemic had become more “acute” since the “state government is not ready to accept the enormity of the crisis”. Highlighting the “pathetic attitude” of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Disease (NICED) in Beliaghata, he said the institute was not taking any pro-active initiatives, instead it was “taking cue from the state Health Department and acting on their behalf to subvert the ground reality”. He also mentioned that the state government had created a huge fear psychosis among the doctors and they are “unwilling to even issue death certificates of dengue deaths”. With inputs from agencies