Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on Friday confirmed that the disease outbreak in Cherthala taluk of Kerala was chikungunya and assured Central assistance to the Kerala government to tackle the problem.
Dr Ramadoss, who arrived at Kochi early Friday morning, visited the Thuravoor community health centre in Cherthala accompanied by the parliamentarians K S Manoj and C S Sujatha and state Health Minister P K Sreemathy. He went around and interacted with patients for about half an hour. He also visited the Chertala taluk hospital.
The minister spoke to the patients and enquired about their health. Both hospitals were overflowing with patients with two to three of them sharing a bed and some even forced to lie on the floor.
Later, talking to reporters at Thuravoor, Dr Ramadoss confirmed the outbreak of chikungunya in Cherthala taluk. Nearly 800 to 900 people have been affected by fever and of these, 60 samples have tested positive for Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral disease.
There had been some confusion on whether the fever, which claimed over 80 lives in the taluk in the past few weeks, was Chikungunya, as the fever did not lead to fatalities in the other southern states, which were also hit by an outbreak.
Asked about availability of facilities in Cherthala to deal with the crisis, Dr Ramadoss said no local hospital was equipped to deal with the outbreak of the disease at such a large-scale. So the Centre will give all possible help to the state government to deal with the situation.
The minister announced a special package for the state to combat chickungunya and said that the Centre will supply fogging machines, mosquito nets and testing kits to the state.
"The Centre will supply fogging machines, mosquito nets and testing kits," the minister told media persons in Alapuzha district after visiting the two hospitals.
This is the first time that the Centre is supplying fogging machines, he said, adding that the National Institute of Virology,
Is chikungunya fatal?