Till August this year, 1,869 patients were down with the disease in Karnataka, 2,683 in Kerala and 4,675 in Tamil Nadu. While 39 people died in Tamil Nadu, the casualty was 17 in Karnataka and nine in Kerala.  ”In contrast, 638 people were afflicted with dengue in West Bengal, which recorded three deaths,” she said. However, unofficial sources have put the dengue toll at 21 in West Bengal. The state is going for  more advanced NS-1 Elisa tests for determining dengue.

Within two days the kits will be available. Then having dengue will be determined within two days. The Chief Minister is paying a surprise visit to the state-owned Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital. Responding to the opposition charge that the situation was spinning out of control, the Chief Minister said that in 2005 during the Left Front regime 6,273 people got afflicted with dengue, of whom 34 died. The chief minister also attacked nursing homes and private hospitals saying “some of them” were doing good business by encashing on the people’s fears about dengue.

The Chief Minister confessed her helplessness as the nursing homes and private hospitals are not in her  control. She only appealed for doing proper business and also for ascertaining the economic condition of the patients before billing.

As usual, she always deviates from her point in her speech on a subject and advised the youth to avoid going on a controlled diet as it decreases immunity and leads to ailments like dengue. Water or no water , the number of confirmed dengue cases in West Bengal have shot up to at least 643, with 80 percent of the patients residing in Kolkata and its adjoining North 24 Parganas district.