Three more babies died of either adenovirus infections or respiratory trouble in government hospitals in the city since Monday night. With these three cases, number of baby deaths caused by the viral disease shot up to eight since Saturday though the state health department claimed that all deaths were not always caused by adenoviruses alone.

According to sources at Medical College Hospital (MCH), two toddlers died there during the last two hours since Monday night.

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One of them who infected with adenovirus was undergoing cardiac care treatment in the high dependency unit (HDU) at the MCH and died on Tuesday morning.

The MCH authorities have not yet confirmed whether the six-month-old newborn died of the viral infection.

Another baby died at the hospital on Monday night showing adenovirus-like symptoms of fever, cough and cold and breathing distress.

In the BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Science at Beliaghata, a sixmonth-old baby died on Tuesday showing similar complications of adenovirus. Seven babies died of shortness in breathing and fever with cough in government hospitals like MCH and BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Science since Saturday.

A nine-month-old female baby, who was suffering from cough, cold and fever for the past 20 days died at the MCH on Monday morning. She was rushed to the hospital from Chinsurah Imambara Hospital in Hooghly.

Another baby died on Monday morning at the state-run BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Science. According to the unofficial sources, 19 babies died of the adenovirus infections or viral disease with the breathing distress and fever during the ongoing season since first week of February.

Dr Debashis Bhattacharya, director of medical education (DME), visited the children hospital at Beliaghata on Monday and claimed not all babies have died of the virus, pneumonia too is causing some of the deaths.

Paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) and neo-natal intensive care units (NICUs) in both state-run and private hospitals are flooded with babies affected by either adenovirus infections or pneumonia complications.

In order to reduce rush of patients in PICUs and NICUs in government hospitals like MCH, NRS Medical College Hospital and BC Roy Children Hospital the health department has decided to set up a 50-bed paediatric care unit at the Infectious Disease (ID) Hospital at Beliaghata.

The health department has also restricted referral system of sending non-critical babies to tertiary level teaching hospitals in the city from districts.

Paediatric ARI clinic

The health department has issued an advisory on Tuesday evening directing to set up paediatric acute respiratory infection (ARI) clinic in all medical colleges, district hospitals, super speciality and sub-division hospitals across the state.

Separate paediatric ARI clinic should also be made operational to reduce waiting time of ailing babies in the OPD Paediatricians must also be available in the emergency and no referral of patients should be made without clearance of superintendents.

Ventilators and other emergency backup support system should be arranged in the PICU and, NICU.

An helpline number : 1800- 313444-222 has been established, which will be on 24×7.