Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

House expresses concern over spread of viral fever

Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Assembly on Tuesday expressed serious concern about the spread of viral fever to new areas and its strange post-infection manifestations and called upon the Government to take urgent steps to identify the causative factors and take remedial action.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan shared the concern of the House and promised the Opposition that the Cabinet would review the situation and take necessary decision to provide additional relief to the fever-hit and to check its spread. The Government was able to check the first outbreak of the fever thanks to some concerted action involving both Central and State agencies and personnel. However, the situation appeared to be turning serious.

The Government would certainly step in and do whatever possible in the matter, Mr. Achuthanandan said.

Earlier, Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy drew the Chief Minister’s attention to the issue and pointed out that persons recovering from the fever were developing sores from which worms were coming. This had left the people panic stricken. The Government must provide free ration to the fever-hit, as in many cases entire families were out of work on account of fever, he said.

The issue was raised in the form of a submission by Joseph M. Puthussery (Kerala Congress-M), who pointed out that Pathanamthitta and Kottayam districts were once again in the grip of the viral attack.

Replying to the submission, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said the Government had requested the Central Government to make the services of experts available to the State to identify the root cause of the ailment and advice it on ways to check its spread.

She claimed that the number of persons being treated as in-patients in hospitals in both Pathanamthitta and Kottayam had come down and promised to look into complaints of shortage of doctors in the affected areas. As many as 748 doctors had joined the services of the Health Department under the contract appointment scheme. Their services would be utilised in tacking the fever outbreak, Ms. Sreemathy said.

Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran told N. Rajan (CPI) that the Government would make available Rs.20 crore to the districts as additional assistance for monsoon calamity relief.

He appealed to MLAs to use the weekend recess to monitor the receipt and utilisation of the funds in their constituencies.

Law Minister M. Vijayakumar told Aysha Potty (CPI-M) that the Government would amend the Kerala Advocates’ Welfare Fund Act to raise the quantum of retirement assistance for lawyers from Rs.3 lakh to Rs.5 lakh. He also promised to consider favourably the demand for higher stipend for young lawyers and enable fresh law graduates also to appear for the Judicial Magistrate post.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister C. Divakaran told Thomas Chazhikkadan (KC-M) that the suicide by a farmer in the Kuttanad area last week was not on account of delay in payment of the price of paddy procured from him, but due to other heavy debt. The Government had made a record procurement of 15 lakh quintals of paddy this year and has already paid Rs.128 crore out of the total sum of Rs.129 crore that it owed the farmers, Mr. Divakaran said.

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