‘Our family’s future is gone’: Kin of Koh victims in shock
KOH (MATHURA): Koh stirs to life early in the morning. The young men go to factories in Mathura, an hour away, and other men and women head to the fields or cowsheds. The village of roughly 350 households is a patchwork of red, green, pink and blue brick houses with piles of cow dung, mulch, and water strewn along the few pucca roads. Open drains run alongside.
Over the past fortnight, however, a blanket of silence has fallen over the usual village chatter, pierced by the occasional wail of a heartbroken mother. In that period, the village has lost nine children to dengue and another 130 people have fallen sick to the viral fever that has killed at least 54 people in the state.
Koh is the among the worst-affected areas by the outbreak that first became public on August 18 from Firozabad but quickly spread across the region. The government later clarified that the “mysterious disease” initially reported was, in fact, dengue. A central team later classified a majority of the deaths as being caused by dengue, with the others attributed to scrub typhus and leptospirosis.
In the village, some distraught relatives make the rounds of the local temple, others call up local moneylenders and banks because most families are poor and financially stretched by hospital costs.
Ved Prakash, 37, is one of them. The labourer’s five-year-old daughter, Honey, died on August 23, while on their way to a hospital. “On August 5, Honey got a fever but after giving her medicines from the local doctor, her condition worsened. We admitted her to a private hospital in Mathura where she was treated for 20 days. On August 23, we decided to take her to Jaipur to a better hospital but she passed away on the way,” said Prakash, biting back tears. Eleven of the 12 members in his house are down with fever.
After a visit by CM Yogi Adityanath on August 30, the administration stepped up treatment and mitigation efforts. Action against some officials is also likely.
Inadequate facilities
In Koh, the primary health centre is 10 km away and is poorly staffed. Villagers said they didn’t “trust” the government facilities.
“The first death was on August 11 of four-year-old Ramiya. Her parents had gone to the district hospital in Mathura and had to wait 1.5 hours for admission; even after that, no doctor attended her for eight hours,” said Harender Singh, the village chief.
Between August 11 and 20, three more children died, one of them Singh’s nephew Avneesh.
“Our family’s future is gone,” said Lilawati, the child’s grandmother, clutching a smiling portrait of the nine-year-old. “On August 15, Avneesh woke up with fever and cold sweat. Soon, his condition worsened, with red spots on the body. He was admitted in a private hospital in Farah (a block in Mathura) for two days after which we decided to shift him to a bigger hospital on August 20. However, he died on the way,” said Singh. He said he informed Mathura chief medical officer Rachna Gupta on August 20 but alleged that he didn’t receive a response. “She took the matter lightly. That is when on August 21, I decided to inform a local journalist about it. After the report was published in the local newspaper, a medical team from the CMO office came to our village on August 22,” said Singh.
Since then, a medical team comprising a doctor, a pharmacist, a lab technician and a nurse have set up a temporary 24x7 health care centre where all cases of fever are being screened for malaria and dengue. Two ambulances are also stationed at the village to ferry patients to the local community health centre.
Blame game
The spate of deaths has sparked a blame game with villagers alleging the government was initially lax, and the administration refuting the charges. Gupta said that immediate action was taken by the district health department. “The village pradhan decided to inform the media before informing the local health officials about it. However, immediate action was taken by us which has helped control the deaths and the fever cases, as compared to nearby districts,” she said. She added that there was no “mystery fever”. “While a death audit will ascertain the cause of deaths, there are several infections that people are being screened for, these include dengue, malaria, Japanese Encephalitis, Scrub Typhus and Laptopirisis,” said Gupta. Official data shows the block – which comprises four villages other than Koh – has reported 177 cases of dengue, 16 cases of malaria, 29 cases of scrub typhus, 45 cases of laptopirisis, and 2 cases of Japanese Encephalitis since August 21.
Gupta said 16 of the 352 houses were found to have larvae and stagnant water. She said cases were now under control.
But back at the village, locals say it will take a long time for things to be back to normal. They point to the many locked houses, after at least 40 families fled the village due to fear of the fever. “The families left in the village have sent their women and children to their maternal villages,” said Singh.