After actor Kamal Haasan sent social media into a frenzy on Sunday over a tweet about yet another dengue death in Chennai, officials in the Health Department have confirmed to TNM that a seven-year-old boy from DAV, Gopalapuram school has indeed succumbed to the virus.
Bhargav, a student was suffering from fever and was taken to three hospitals on Sunday before he passed away, say officials. A team is now currently investigating the matter.
"His parent admitted him to Dr Mehta's Hospitals and he was referred to Apollo Hospital. Then he was taken to Child Trust," explains Director of Public Health K Kolandaisamy. "A team is now checking the health reports in all these hospitals to understand if proper treatment was given," he adds.
A health official from the Chennai Corporation, who spoke to TNM said that a team was already at Dr Mehta's Hospital and that they would arrive at a case summary by Monday evening.
"We will be visiting the school premises and their home in Thousand Lights to check if measures to curb mosquito breeding have been taken," says Dr K Kolandaisamy.
On Sunday night, actor Kamal Haasan tweeted saying that his pleas regarding dengue had fallen on deaf ears and that a student named Bharghav had succumbed to the disease. He also requested parents to be vigilant and question the government for inaction.
செவிடர்க்கு நான் ஊதிய டெங்கு ஜுரச் சங்கு வீண். கோபாலபுரம் DAV பள்ளி மாணவன் பார்கவ் பலி. டெங்கு மரணம் தவிர்க்க ஆவன செய்யாஅரசு அகல வேண்டும்
— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) September 24, 2017
அரசு தூங்குகிறது பெற்ரோர் விழித்திருங்கள். இனி காவலர் நாம்தான். கேள்விக்கான பதிலை பெறாது அமையாதீர்.
— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) September 24, 2017
This comes days after he requested the government to control the spread of the virus or to step aside.
Following his tweet, state Health Minister C Vijayabaskar had assured the public that necessary steps were being taken and that dengue was actually on the decline.
Bhargav's death comes shortly after that of Prem Avinash, a third-year student from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras who passed away early on Friday morning at Apollo Hospital, where he was being treated for Dengue Haemorrhage Fever.
According to Fifth Estate, the official campus newspaper of IIT Madras, the cause of death is said to be internal bleeding which led to multiple organ failure. Following a blood test report from the hospital inside the institute last Tuesday, Prem is said to have been taken to Apollo Hospital.
According to a report by the National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme, cases of dengue have more than doubled this year as compared to the same period in 2016, with seven out of ten cases being reported from Tamil Nadu or Kerala. Fifteen people have died due to dengue up until August in Tamil Nadu this year alone, according to J Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary of the state’s Health Department.