Dengue took the death toll to four when a 21-year-old, Rupesh Kumar Mishra died at a city’s nursing home by suffering from the same.

The deceased who originally hailed from Jaunpore in Uttar Pradesh was living with his father at Bechu Chatterjee Street in Ward 38, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and was admitted to the nursing home on Saturday.

The mayor of the city Mr Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya pointed out that, “The patient had been suffering from the disease over the past 10 days but proper treatment was not carried out.” While the Municipal surveillance officer, Dr Basudev Mukherjee asserted that the medical reports will soon be sent to the state health department, said that however the patient’s platelet count in blood had fallen to 12,000 from 1,80,000 yet signs of bleeding and haemorrhage were not reported.

The civic officials informed that till now they have received 72 cases of dengue and 1493 cases of Plasmodium falciparum type malaria in the city. State owned SSKM Medical College and Hospital was given a notice by the civic authorities as their inability to put a check upon the potential breeding of mosquitoes inside their campus but the officials of SSKM claimed that no such notice was served upon them by KMC.

The local body, Kolkata Nagarik Samannay and People's Health insisted the KMC and State Health Department should proclaim the outbreak of vector borne diseases as an ‘epidemic’ and steps according to the ones enlisted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) be carried out. Indoor residual spraying should be done in the likelihood areas and usage of impregnated bed nets as well. They further demanded to have publication of the weekly reports of the inflicted patients under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and a white paper should be presented highlighting the performance by National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme.

The President of People's Health, Dr Debasish Dutta said that while the meeting with the mayor was not fruitful yet they have submitted the demands to the state health minister, Dr Surya Kanta Mishra and awaits his response.