Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) authorities seem to be silent on the deaths caused by dengue. The doctors provide no official declaration of the death which is confirmed to the media by unauthorized individuals.
DMCH police outpost in charge Bacchu Mia confirmed the death of 52-year-old Munni Begum who died from the mosquito-borne virus on Friday (Aug 30).
The same way he confirmed the death of 45-year-old Henna Begum. Her brother Sumon told Bangla Tribune that she had tested positive for dengue.
Although hospital authorities were supposed to confirm these deaths, the media is having to rely on police outpost, morgue office or relatives of the deceased.
Several journalists told Bangla Tribune that ever since the formation of the committee the authorities don’t give confirmations but through the morgue offices and police outpost, they’ve been able to confirm 33 deaths at DMCH.
On Aug 7, DMCH formed a committee to confirm dengue-related deaths but since its formulation, the authorities have stopped giving official confirmation of deaths.
That very same day hospital Director Brig Gen AKM Nasir Uddin said that whether a patient has indeed died of dengue needs to be confirmed after running proper tests.
“Some patients are dying after being admitted to the hospital with a fever. But tests need to be run in order to ensure if indeed their death was caused by dengue,” he had said.
He had added that there are cases when the patient was suffering from various other illnesses before contracting a fever but the relatives claimed that the death was caused by dengue and that the committee will be responsible for determining the cause of deaths.
The seven-member committee comprises of representatives from the DMCH medicine, paediatrics, pathology and anaesthesia departments.
Nasir also said that the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) is responsible for determining the cause of death.
Meanwhile, IEDCR said that so far DMCH has referred 23 incidents deaths to them and after reviewing eight of those cases they confirmed that three were caused by dengue.
On Aug 25, the hospital director Nasir had said that four people died at DMCH that day. A doctor of the medicine department said that all four were from his ward but he couldn’t specify the total number of deaths.
“The total count can be found with the director,” he said. Several other employees at the hospital said that the file is with the director.
Director Nasir didn’t receive the call despite several attempts on Bangla Tribune’s part to reach him.
According to a Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) statement on Saturday (Aug 31), the official death tally of deaths caused by dengue is 57 from Jan 1 till Aug 31.
Of the deaths, 54 were recorded at hospitals in Dhaka city, one from Dhaka division (outside the capital), and two from Khulna division.
The unofficial death toll, however, is reported over 126.
The statement said that 760 new dengue patients were hospitalised across Bangladesh in the last 24 hours, amongst which 349 were in Dhaka and another 411 were outside.
The total number of admitted patients currently undergoing treatment in government and private hospitals across the country is 4,860, while a total of 2,696 patients are currently receiving treatment in the capital, whereas a total of 2,164 people are undergoing treatment outside the capital.
As many as 70,195 people have been affected by dengue so far in 2019 since January 1 and a total of 65,150 have been released from their respective hospitals and clinics after treatment.
