'Give clear pic of dengue,c'guya prevalence in affected dists'

The Madras High Court Bench today directed the Chief Medical officer of Government Rajaji Hospital here to appear before it on January 12 and give a clear picture of the prevalance of dengue and chikungunya cases in affected districts of the state.
Justices S.Tamilvanan and V S Ravi gave this direction on a petition by one K K Ramesh seeking strong action against the Health Secretary for 'supressing' facts about the ground situation.
The petitioner submitted that a different bench had earlier disposed the PIL after the Health Secretary filed a report on the steps taken by the government to control the two diseases and sought a review of the same.

Ramesh contended that the Judges ought to have seen that steps to control the mosquito-borne diseases were not satisfactory. All newspapers carried reports of deaths due to dengue daily. Officials at Government Rajaji hospital were not even issuing death certificates to dengue victims, he alleged.
He also charged health department officials with not giving the real facts about the diseases. Hundreds of patients were being admitted all over Tamil Nadu for treatment of dengue, he said, adding the number of cases would have come down had the Secretary taken serious steps.
The petitioner also alleged that medicines had not been supplied to the hospitals and prayed for a direction from the court against the Health Secretary for 'suppressing' facts about the mosquito-related diseases.

A majority of the suspected dengue fatalities have ocurred in Virudhunagar district where 17 persons have succumbed to the vector-borne disease since December 22 last year.