Dengue virus outbreak from June to September this year was among the worse in recent memory especially in Dimapur and Mon where. The outbreak was severe in foothill areas and in Dimapur, the situation was as bad as in Mon district.
Most of the hospitals in Dimapur were overwhelmed with dengue and other cases and could not admit anymore dengue patients since all beds had been occupied. Dengue this time was severe and various official reports stated that the serotyping of samples found positive for dengue was due to the presence of Type-2 strain (DENV 2) in a majority of them.
Dengue Virus Type-2 is supposed to be the most severe and has a tendency to cause haemorrhagic fever and mortality. According to Dr Rommel Tickoo, Director, Internal Medicine, Max Hospital, Saket, DENV 2 can cause dengue shock syndrome and also lead to multi-organ failure.
On September 3, District Surveillance Officer, Dr Kavito Zhimomi, disclosed that there were 1,670 suspected cases as of September in Dimapur, up from 227 since the outbreak in July.
At a hospital in Dimapur, doctors disclosed that there were 17 dengue cases in the month of September. Reports from several hospitals in Dimapur spoke of all beds being occupied. In some hospitals, some of the recovering patients were requested to discharge due to immense pressure for admission of dengue patients.
Despite the rising number of dengue cases from July to September and to a lesser extent till October, the health and family welfare dismissed any notion of the situation being alarming. Some medical doctors in Dimapur had even gone so far as to term it “epidemic-like” while some felt that the state government should have declared a “Dengue Alert”.
On September 22, medical minister P. Paiwang Konyak maintained that the dengue situation was not alarming while admitting that there were cases reported. The statement came against the backdrop of hospitals in Dimapur being overwhelmed by increasing number of patients seeking medical attention for dengue-like symptoms. In major hospitals, there were no beds occupied mostly by dengue patients.
To disclaim the alarming and epidemic-like situation, Paiwang cited data analysis collected from various hospitals which indicated that out of 100 cases of suspected dengue, around 70% exhibited mild fever with dengue-like symptoms and with only about 30% being confirmed dengue cases. Again out of the 30%, he said only two to three cases were classified as severe, necessitating blood transfusion.
On October 28, the health department, despite maintaining that the dengue situation was not alarming, informed that a total of 2899 Dengue cases were reported in Nagaland from various districts as on October 26.
The report also said one death was reported from Mon. On October 28, National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme’s state programme officer Dr Tinurenla said the Central government did not officially record cases that tested positive through rapid test (RTD) as dengue because RTDs often yielded false positives.
She clarified that as per the vector-borne programme, they were required to report only positive cases confirmed through the Elisa test. Even if someone tested positive in RTD, a confirmatory Elisa test was necessary, she added.
On October 30 the department informed that 1500 Dengue cases patients were admitted to District Hospital Mon. This was in contrast to the report the department issued earlier on October 26 where it informed that Mon recorded only 933 Dengue cases. That means with a space of four days Dengue cases in Mon shot up from 933 to 1500 in Mon, a jump by 567 cases.
Deaths: As per the official figure issued on October 26 there was only one dengue-related death in Mon. However in Dimapur, a chairman of one colony informed this newspaper that there were around 50 dengue cases while around three to four died due to dengue-related issue.
Despite the above facts and figures, the government maintained that the situation was not a cause for concern, which had been resented by the affected families especially of those who succumbed to the virus.
According to some, the state was probably caught unprepared by the surge in dengue cases as demand for blood and beds shot up beyond capacity and capability.