Dengue has assumed almost endemic proportions in West Bengal, and the government appears to be floundering in search of a response. From the initial dumbing down by the administration ~ private diagnostic centres are still being blamed for the ‘exaggeration’ ~ it has now opted for overkill.

With 16 deaths in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area alone and many more in the districts, the civic authorities intend to fly drones to identify breeding grounds of mosquitoes. One would have imagined that this is a fundamental duty of any corporation or municipality; the persistent ignorance of the “mosquito centres” is appalling, to say the least.

The spurt in the number of afflictions and deaths since September would suggest that the authorities have woken up late, after the initial attribution of the deaths to “fever”… and not dengue. To the incredible extent that the city’s crematoria have reportedly been hesitant to mention “dengue” in death certificates; a few are said to have relented only in the face of pressure from the next of kin. Indeed, it is the hesitation to come upfront that has been manifest in the response of the civic authorities.

The short point must be that a potentially killer ailment lends no scope to sweep reality under the carpet. So it has been at least in Kolkata, not to forget the districts. It beggars belief that the vector control teams are short-staffed across the wards, and hence the horribly belated decision to increase the number of trained staff.

Clearly, surveillance was wholly inadequate, almost perfunctory. Blaming it on the rain during Kali puja, as did the Mayor-in-Council (Health) on Monday, would have been ludicrous were it not for the mortal implications. It strains credulity to be informed that “water pockets”, where mosquitoes breed, have come up in less than a week. It is time for the health department and KMC to acknowledge reality ~ outbreak of dengue this year is testament to an essentially human failure. The government cannot evade its responsibility by fudging facts.

Action needs to be taken against private hospitals and diagnostic centres if indeed their diagnosis is not in accord with the guidelines of the World Health Organisation. No one denies that “cross-verification” or a “second opinion”, socalled, is direly imperative. But the government’s signal of intent has been emitted rather late in the day… after enough have perished and many more are languishing on the hospital floor, when not on the bed.

The health department needs to take a call on whether diagnostic centres possess the wherewithal to calibrate the blood platelet count ~ the essential benchmark before dengue can be certified.

It is hard not to wonder if the services of the School of Tropical Medicine have been fully utilised.