The Telangana High Court pulled up the state government for its failure to tackle the spread of dengue and responded strongly to the health department's claim that no one had died of the disease this year until September 7.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy made scathing observations after going through reports filed by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the Directorate of Public Health of Telangana.
Suggesting that the state government had no proper data available with them regarding dengue and other viral fevers, media reports quoted the CJ further observing, “We are facing an epidemic. Therefore, we are very serious to know as to how equipped our state machinery is to curtail dengue menace.”
The court also pulled up the state for failing to take up fogging measures,
Speaking about the state's claim of zero dengue deaths, the petitioner's counsel told the court, “A patient may die due to organ failure because of dengue. In such a case, the cause of death would be dengue, and not organ failure."
Last week, amidst the dengue crisis in the state, the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Telangana state, blamed the GHMC and other departments of the government. The IMA said that authorities did not plan properly to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes.
The IMA said that the GHMC did not fumigate enough, or conduct special cleanliness drives, as a result of which, the cases of seasonal fever were rampant this year.
At the time, Dr BN Rao, state vice president of IMA, Telangana chapter, told TNM, “If there was proper coordination among government agencies and planning ahead to tackle the spread of viral diseases, the outbreak could have been contained.”