Thaindian News

Kolkata, Sep 2 (IANS) The number of confirmed dengue cases in West Bengal has shot up to 643, with 80 percent of the patients residing in Kolkata and its adjoining North 24 Parganas district, the state health department said Sunday.

The disease has claimed three lives so far.

The outbreak triggered a spat between ruling alliance partners Congress and Trinamool, with the former alleging that the government was trying to suppress dengue figures.

While 397 people were struck by the ailment in Kolkata, 116 others fell sick in North 24 Parganas.

The epidemic first struck in the second week of August.

Hitting out at the Mamata Banerjee regime, state Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya told IANS: “The government has not done what it needs to do to control the outbreak. It should have tried to work on a war footing. It is not doing that. Instead, it is only trying to suppress the figures.”

The government was quick and sharp with the rebuttal.

“This is nothing but the ramblings of an unsound mind. How can we suppress such figures? We are doing whatever needs to be done,” said Minister of State for Health Chandrima Bhattacharya.

Meanwhile, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has decided to come out with a white paper on the dengue outbreak in its area.

“We feel some areas which are not under the KMC is being included in the list of afflicted in the disease. So the Kolkata figures seem to huge,” said the civic body’s mayor-in-council health Atin Ghosh.

The dengue-prone areas have been divided into category A and B, going by the intensity of the disease in the area. Kolkata is under category A and areas of Howrah, Siliguri and Asansol are under category B.