Veteran CPM Leader Sujan Chakraborty Down With Dengue Amid Rising Concerns of Its Spread

Kolkata: Veteran CPI (M) leader Sujan Chakraborty, who had been spearheading a massive campaign against the Mamata Banerjee government for failing to check the dengue menace in West Bengal, has contracted the disease himself and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital.

While he himself was unavailable for comment, his nephew Tanay Chakraborty confirmed to News18 that he is suffering from dengue and is undergoing treatment at the Devi Shetty Hospital in Kolkata.

"He has been suffering from fever over the past few days, when we got his tests done, it was found that he had tested positive for NS1. He is stable at the moment and is undergoing treatment," Tanay said.

Meanwhile, the state government on Thursday revised the dengue death toll in the state to 38, while reporting to the Calcutta High Court.

Advocate General (AG) Kishore Dutta told the division bench of Acting Chief Justice J Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Banerjee, that since January, 23 people have died of dengue at government hospitals and 15 at private hospitals.

He further revealed that over 1.3 lakh people have been tested positive for dengue at government facilities in the state. He also alleged that the media is sensationalizing the issue quite “unnecessarily”.

Interestingly, during the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Kaushik Chanda (representing the Centre) told the court that the hospitals were presenting distorted figures.

Chanda has claimed that he had seen it for himself, when after being diagnosed with dengue, his release certificate from a private hospital stated that “I was suffering from a viral fever and the word dengue was not mentioned”.

The hearing in the matter will resume on Friday.

Recently, a petition was filed at the Calcutta High Court, alleging that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was hiding the actual figures of dengue deaths in Bengal.

In an affidavit by the state Director of Health Services (DHS), Biswa Ranjan Satpathy had claimed that only 19 people died of the fever (without mentioning the name of dengue), while 18,135 were affected in the state between January 1 and November 9.

Earlier, Mamata Banerjee held the Centre responsible for the rising number of dengue cases in the state.

The chief minister took stock of the state’s preparedness to combat dengue and other diseases during a meeting at the state secretariat and concluded that dengue cases are high in areas that are close Metro construction sites.

She also clarified that the disease (dengue) was spreading due to garbage accumulation at Metro construction sites and that the central government is not allowing them to remove the garbage.