A five-year-old girl, Abinidhi, died of dengue fever in Tirupattur district on Wednesday. Abinidhi's unfortunate demise marks the fourth dengue-related fatality in Tamil Nadu in over a month. In response to the situation, district administration has ramped up measures to prevent the spread of infection on Thursday. They also arranged for special medical camps to collect samples and test for infection.
Talking to The Hindu, Health Officials officials said that Abinidhi was a Class 1 student of a private school at Shivarajpettai within Tirupattur municipality limits. Abindhi initially developed a fever and she was taken to a private hospital for treatment in Krishnagiri on September 23 by her father Manikandan. Abindhi was treated at the hospital and was later discharged.
On September 26, however, Abinidhi started suffering from vomiting and was again admitted to Government Medical College Hospital in Tirupattur. Later, the doctors referred her to Government Medical College Hospital in Dharmapuri for advanced care. However, Abinidhi died without responding to treatment at the hospital on September 27 night.
Later, the doctors performed postmortem and handed over the body of the girl to her parents.
Sources in the health department told IANS, "Special medical camps will be held at the Government General Hospital, two primary health care centres and health wellness centres in Vaniyambadi town in the coming days. The health department will collect samples of people attending these camps and will conduct tests to understand whether the people were infected."
The death of Abinidhi due to dengue comes just less than a month after a 59-year-old man from Vaniyambadi died at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) in Chennai on September 2. The man was infected with H1N1 influenza, said the report.
Puducherry also reported two dengue deaths in September.