Media has hopped on to the H1N1 bus once again. Each day you hear about the number of people who are tested positive. God forbid somebody dies; it’s a field day for the media. Any hospital related death gets a H1N1 tag. The numbers projected are quite phenomenal. Ask any average Bangalorean, and he would talk at length about the dreadfulness of swine flu. The biggest health threat that an average Bangalorean seems to have faced is swine flu. No amount of effort from WHO has been able to stop people from using the term “Swine flu”.
The same cannot be said when it comes to someone who follows disease outbreaks. He would laugh if someone spoke about the dreadfulness of swine flu. A google search would throw out results on how Dengue, Chikungunya and Malaria cases are engulfing the state of Karnataka. The suffering and fatality of these diseases are far more dreadful then the common cold caused by H1N1.
4,254 suspected Chikungunya cases have been reported till July-end and 679 cases had tested positive. A total of 17,374 malarial cases had been reported from January to June. Incidence has gone up in July. 
706 blood samples were tested at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) laboratory out of which 209 were confirmed positive for dengue till date.
"There is no cause for panic among the people about dengue and Chikungunya fevers as both have been contained, they are very much under control and no dengue deaths have been reported in the state this year", …Health Secretary E V Ramana Reddy.
Our BBMP (Bangalore
Our highly qualified Health minister B Sriramulu, has an interesting explanation on dengue related deaths. “Going by the Central government norms dengue death can be declared only after confirmation from the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. But many private hospitals are declaring deaths after some rapid tests conducted through other medical kits, which is wrong,” he said. “But compared to previous years, the disease threat and death rate have come down. We have also opened 14 surveillance centres.”
“Some hospitals that are treating dengue patients fall under the medical education department. Those hospitals don’t come within my limits. But I am discussing this with the minister concerned to sort out the issue at the earliest,” he said. Our learned minister is clarifying to the general public that if one gets admitted to a hospital attached to a teaching college then their health is not his concern. He probably should release an advisory on this regard.
Our health minister is so sure about the health of people of the state, that he preferred being ignorant about his department’s counter action to the Dengue outbreak. It took quite a bit of an effort from the media to shake him off his political commitments.
He admitted there’s a crisis. “I realize the problems of people suffering from dengue now. It’s my failure and I will try to correct the problem,”. Having woken up to the problem, I hope the minister and his department make an effort tell the people of the state that H1N1 is not the issue but its Dengue & Chikungunya.
Mosquitoes are a bigger problem compared to pig!!!
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