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Fresh outbreak of dengue in Kanyakumari

By Our Staff Reporter

NAGERCOIL AUG. 26. There has been a fresh outbreak of dengue in Kanyakumari district, and six children, suspected to be suffering from the fever, were referred to the government medical college hospital at Kottar here today. These children, aged four months-nine years, had hitherto been undergoing treatment at the government hospitals at Thuckalay near here and Kuzhithurai, bordering Kerala.

The disease claimed the lives of two children at Ambalakadai about a couple of days ago, apart from infecting six others in the Ambalakadai and Villukury areas. The latter were initially admitted to the government hospitals at Kuzhithurai and Thuckalay with symptoms of dengue, and today all of them were referred to the medical college hospital at Kottar.

So far, six children from Marthandam and surrounding areas have died since the outbreak about a couple of months ago. Of 417 blood samples obtained from the suspected patients and sent to the Institute of Vector Control, Hosur, and the Institute of Research Control, Madurai, 46 have been found to have dengue fever, and all of them are undergoing treatment in various hospitals in the district.

On Monday, a medical team under the Additional Director of Public Health, Jagadish Ramasamy, and comprising of entomologists, S. Subbiah and R. Varadarajan, have already arrived from Chennai and launched an awareness campaign, according to sources at the Directorate of Public Health office here. An official said the health and municipal authorities had already launched anti-larval and fogging operations as the disease spread mainly through the Aedes mosquito bite.

The problem is more in the plantation-dominated areas of Melpuram, Thuckalay and Muncherai blocks.

The Deputy Director of Health Services, Inbaraj Manohar, has gone to Thiruvananthapuram to confer with the government health officials there as the fever had spread from the Kerala capital.

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