Chikungunya: Is it what ails 13 lakh Indians?

Making a U-turn on the issue of Chikungunya, the Cental government on Monday said the deaths in Kerala and other places might have happened due to the East African virus even as they put the suspected case figure at 1.3 million in the country.

"We are not ruling out Chikungunya behind these deaths but we cannot give the actual death figures as we are still conducting investigations into the matter. We are investigating the autopsy reports," Indian Council for Medical Research head N K Ganguly told reporters in New Delhi.

Earlier, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss had refused to confirm the deaths due to Chikungunya in Kerala even as the state govenment had categorically held the deadly viral responsible for the 86 deaths in the state.

Ganguly said only 33 Chikungunya cases have been confirmed in Kerala, out of the 22,235 suspected cases while there were 1.3 million suspected overall.

"There could be some deaths due to the disease. We will be able to confirm it in a week's time. The World Health Organisation is yet to submit their report," said Ganguly, adding that the team, consisting of members of National Institute of Communicable Diseases

and the National Institute of Virology, who had visited Kerala last week, will also be submitting its report in a week's time.

He said according to their findings, older people were the victims of the disease in most cases and it was also found that they were suffering from multiple problems such as influenza.

The Chikungunya strain is of East African origin, which has been seen in India after 32 years. On being asked how long it takes to confirm a suspected Chikungunya case, Ganguly said it could be anywhere from few hours to one day, depending on what kind of test is being carried out.

These tests are conducted in NICD, NIV and AIIMS.

He said WHO's special surveillance system was not able to predict Chikungunya outbreak in the country. "Our current concern is diagnosing people who are affected with the viral," he said.

He said they have received information about some deaths in Ahmedabad due to Chikungunya and they will be investigating it too. "In Ahmedabad too deaths have been attibuted to Chikungunya. The profile of the victims has shown that elderly people have died. In one case there was report that the person suffered from kidney problem," he added.