LHMC chief’s wife dies of dengue,toll rises to four

She is the fourth dengue patient to die this season in Delhi.

She was first taken to the emergency unit at the LHMC’s Sucheta Kriplani Hospital in Connaught Place on October 11. When her condition continued to deteriorate,her family decided to shift her to B L Kapur Memorial Hospital.

A senior specialist in medicine from LHMC said,“It appears as if the patient was admitted very late. Though she was started on blood transfusion,she went into haemorrhagic shock. There was very little the doctors could do after that,and the family decided to shift her to a private hospital.”

Despite repeated attempts,Dr Murarai could not be contacted. To ensure speedy diagnosis of the viral disease,the civic body has introduced the NS-1 antigen test across hospitals. This allows detection of the virus within three to five days of the fever. Until last year,government hospitals only used antibody tests that could detect dengue only by the second week of the fever.

As many as 12 new cases of dengue fever were reported from different hospitals across the Capital in the last 24 hours,taking the count of patients to 354 this year.

According to the civic body,the first dengue death was reported in July,the second in August and the last in September.