A 58-year-old dengue patient from the South Dum Dum municipal area died on Monday night, the eighth victim of the mosquito-borne disease in the municipal area this year.
A resident of Shyama-prasad Colony off Bangur Avenue, Shyamali Banerjee had been running a temperature for a few days and was admitted to a nursing home on Bagmari Road in Ultadanga on September 20 after testing positive for dengue.
The homemaker was shifted to the ICU three days back as her condition deteriorated, an official at the nursing home said.
A garbage dump opposite Shyama-prasad Colony
Shyamali’s death certificate mentions dengue, septic shock, gastrointestinal ulcer and pneumo-sepsis as causes of her death.
Shyamali’s husband Biswanath said a team from South Dum Dum Municipality turned up after his wife passed away and sprinkled bleaching powder around his house.
“I am not in a position to speak. But this step (of sprinkling bleaching powder) was taken after she passed away,” Biswanath said.
Several public health experts said bleaching powder does not kill the larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the primary transmitter of the dengue virus. Larvicides, they said, target larvae in the breeding habitat.
Many neighbours rued the apathy of the civic body towards fighting the dengue menace. Pointing out that the civic workers had sprinkled bleaching powder on only one side of the small lane, some wondered whether these steps were really aimed at stopping breeding of mosquitoes.
“The civic body has been saying they have been taking several measures to stop the breeding of mosquitoes. But the results aren’t showing,” said Sudharshan Roy, a resident of Patipukur. “Garbage is still lying dumped in different pockets. One such pocket is beside my garage.”
Accumulated water and garbage in Patipukur on Jesore Road, part of the South Dum Dum municipal area on Tuesday.
South Dum Dum Municipality has been witnessing a spurt in the number of dengue cases since September 9, the day a 16-year-old girl from the municipal area, Madhu Singh, died of dengue shock syndrome.
Metro visited the area on Tuesday and came across pools of water lying on vacant plots and garbage dumped along roads. The area around railway quarters in Patipukur had multiple puddles.
Accumulated water at a construction site inside Shyama-prasad Colony on Tuesday
Officials in the health department said 917 fresh dengue cases had been reported over the past couple of weeks from the South Dum Dum municipal area.
Sanjay Das, chairman-in-council member, health, South Dum Dum Municipality, said residents, too, must take some responsibility to keep the surroundings clean.
“Our teams are regularly going out and spraying larvicide,” he said.