Humayunpur (Firozabad), Uttar Pradesh 

Uday Pal struggled to speak. He kept shaking his head, looked blankly around, kept wiping his eyes with his sleeve, and could barely say the name of his daughter. His 14-year-old daughter, Anjali, had just returned from the trauma centre of the district hospital in Firozabad. Dead. 

“She is gone. I don’t know why she is dead… she only had a fever but in just two hours she died,” he told Gaon Connection as he squatted on the chaukhat (threshold) of his house in Humayunpur, about two kilometres from the district hospital. 

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Heart-rending wails of women emanated from his home. The grief-stricken father, who sells samosas for a living, said he had no test reports, no hospital papers, nothing to tell why his daughter lost her life.  

“Bass bukhaar aaya tha (she only had a fever),” he kept repeating. 

Fourteen-year-old Anjali, who died yesterday on September 21, is the latest victim of the viral fever outbreak, suspected to be dengue, that has been claiming young lives in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh. Dinesh Kumar Premi, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Firozabad, told Gaon Connection that 62 people, mostly children, have already died in the district so far.

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“Across the CHCs (community health centres) and PHCs (primary health centres) in the district, 114 people were admitted till yesterday (September 21),” Premi said. 

There seems to be no end in sight for the nightmare in Firozabad, where since mid-August there have been a spate of deaths in the district. Initially the deaths were blamed on a ‘mystery fever’. 

However, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which was tasked with investigating the outbreak, revealed on September 9 that the majority of the deaths were caused due to the ‘D2’ variant of dengue. Apart from Firozabad, these dengue cases have also been reported from the neighbouring Agra and Mathura districts.

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“Today seventy seven more patients were admitted to the hospital taking the total number of patients to 240,” Sangeeta Aneja, principal of the government medical college, Firozabad, told Gaon Connection. But she maintained that things were not as bad as they were a month ago and the number of patients included those who were there for reasons other than dengue or fever. 

The medical college principal said that 39 patients were being treated for dengue at the hospital. So far, there have been eight dengue patients who died there, she informed Gaon Connection. 

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Patients continue to pour in

Outside the 100 Saiyya Hospital in Firozabad, a mother watched anxiously as her daughter was carried into an ambulance.  She was distraught and told Gaon Connection that her 12-year-old daughter had complained of a stomach ache and they had brought her to the 100 Saiya Hospital. But the situation was so bad there that they were taking her away to a private hospital. They had come from Nagla Gokul village in Eka block, 12 kms away from Firozabad. 

Heavy rains in Firozabad have not helped matters. It has made the sanitation conditions even worse. Outside the 100 Saiyya Hospital, roads are nearly knee deep in water after just a short spell of rain. 

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Drains near Anjali’s home in Humayunpur continue to be choked with grey, filthy and turgid water. There is an overriding stench. “We have seen some cleaning activity in the past few weeks,” said one of the mourners standing outside Anjali’s home. “But as you can see it hasn’t really helped matters,” he shrugged.  

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had announced that between September 5 and 12, the health department, urban and rural development departments, the panchayats and the women and child welfare department would work together to combat the outbreak. 

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Firozabad district administration has also introduced gambusia fish in ponds and other water bodies to feed on mosquito larvae in order to control the spread of the vector-borne diseases.

However, fever cases continue to soar. Children are dying from ‘fever’ (suspected dengue) in the Agra district too. Gaon Connection has been regularly reporting on these deaths.

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