A 45-year-old woman from Jadavpur died of dengue on October 19 (Panchami).
Mamani Naskar, who was a resident of Janata Road in Jadavpur’s New Santoshpur, was admitted to Peerless Hospital on October 18.
An official at Peerless Hospital, where she died, said she was brought to the hospital in a critical condition. “She died from dengue-related complications,” said the official.
Tarakeswar Chakraborty, the councillor of Ward 104 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which includes the neighbourhood where the victim lived, said the woman had a fever on October 15.
“She was tested for dengue but the report was negative. But she was very weak. When she vomited on October 18, she was admitted to the hospital. She tested positive for dengue at the hospital,” Chakraborty said.
The woman’s son is a daily wage earner employed by the KMC under the 100-days job scheme, the councillor said.
Several hospitals admitted dengue patients during the Puja. At Peerless Hospital, between two and three dengue patients were admitted on each of the Puja days. The hospital had 23 dengue patients on Wednesday.
The three units of AMRI Hospitals — in Salt Lake, Mukundapur and Dhakuria — had 48 dengue patients on Wednesday. A hospital official said 45 new patients were admitted in the three units between Saturday (Saptami) and Wednesday.
An official at the Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences said that on an average, six-seven dengue tests were being done every day over the last five days. Seven dengue patients were at the hospital on Wednesday.
A number of dengue deaths have been reported from Kolkata as well as the rest of the state this year. But neither the KMC nor the state government has revealed how many people have died of the disease this year.
Before the KMC closed for the Puja vacation, mayor Firhad Hakim had said the number of dengue infections in Kolkata since January stood at 7,422.
Hakim had also said that 1,367 fresh cases were reported in the Kolkata municipal area from October 6 to 12, the season’s highest weekly count in the city.
Dengue deaths have also been reported from Salt Lake and the South Dum Dum municipal area. But the civic authorities of both places have not disclosed the number of infections or the death toll.
KMC officials said dengue numbers are usually high in September and October.
“The rain over Navami and Dashami is a cause of worry. It is likely to create fresh mosquito-breeding sites,” said a KMC official.