Exclusive: Karnataka under Chikungunya epidemic, govt knocks off 12,000 cases from official list

Time and again the incompetency of the state health system and facilities have been exposed but every time they have been downplayed or brushed aside. You have plenty of examples of the lackadaisical attitude – there is  the case of lack of commitment to replace outdated fire extinguishers in the state-owned Vani Vilas and Victoria hospitals, and later, lack of beds for new mothers was ignored by the government, and now, the health department has openly missed to cite over 12,000 cases of Chikungunya cases on its official health site.

According to the reports from the Directorate of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) in Delhi, Karnataka tops the list where cases of  Chikungunya are present in a large numbers.

Although the disease may not be life threatening it does cause a lot of discomfort to patients, such as fever and severe joint pain. Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. There is still no medicine for the disease, and it can be healed by symptomatic treatment.

"We have put up the official list from sourcing information various from states and in that Karnataka tops the list with 13,398 cases followed by Maharashtra  2,618 and Gujarat with 2,570," said an official with the NVBDCP.

However, the figures given by the Karnataka Government will leave you wondering how the Health Ministry has managed to overlook 12,000 cases in its official list. According to the Karnataka Health Department, the state has only 1,376 cases as against the cases confirmed by the NVBDCP, Delhi.

When Newsable called the State Surveillance Officer BG Prakash Kumar to comment on the issue, he was not available.

Lashing out at the government’s attitude towards such serious oversight in health issues, S Prakash, BJP Spokesperson of Karnataka said, "The government is downplaying the increasing cases of Chikungunya and another disease just to escape the embarrassment and its failure in the health department. The government has its priority set; it is to focus on populist schemes to go for elections in 2018.”

He further added with good rains in the state the cases may further shoot up. The Chikungunya mosquito can be found biting throughout daylight hours, though there may be peaks of activity in the early morning and late afternoon and it breeds in stagnant water or water bodies. But the government instead of intensifying the control of mosquito-borne diseases, it is busy playing divisive politics, remarked S Prakash.