Health Minister Zahid Maleque expressed doubt over a state-run hospital’s count of the number of deaths caused by mosquito-borne virus dengue.
On Wednesday (Aug 7), Mugda General Hospital in capital Dhaka hosted a seminar on dengue where the hospital’s chief of medicine Dr Rubina Yasmin said that 11 people have died of dengue in the hospital.
“So far 424 people have received treatment here amongst whom 39 have been released and 11 have died,” she said.
However, in the very same program the health minister said that not a single death has been reported in that hospital.
“We saw a positive picture in this hospital. The number of dengue patients here was 387 amongst the 1,200 that tested. But there are only 500 beds in this hospital but a lot more patients are being accommodated here,” he said.
“I can happily say that not a single dengue patient died here. It’s this hospital’s statistics,” Maleque said.
He was immediately reminded by the doctors and nurses at the front row of the seminar that 11 people have died. It was followed by Dhaka-9 lawmaker Saber Hossain, who was also present at the seminar, to hand him a paper containing the statistics.
“They are saying that 11 people have died here but they couldn’t determine how many died of dengue,” the minister said after reading the paper.
“They are saying that the deaths are unconfirmed deaths. It means that every hospital has two-four casualties due to various reasons.
“But according them the number of deaths is 11 but how many of them are due to dengue? Even they are not confirmed of it.”
Prior to the minister’s speech, several doctors said that the dengue situation in the country has reached an epidemic.
He, however, shot it down saying that the outbreak was neither epidemic nor was it normal.