No death due to the viral infection: Salim Habayeb
New Delhi : Even as the country is gripped by Chikungunya, World Health Organisation (WHO) India head yesterday (Oct 11,2006) said there are no deaths due to the viral infection.
"The study team which had visited Kerala to look into the reported Chikungunya deaths had not found a single death due to the disease," Salim Habayeb, the WHO's India
representative informed Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss at a meeting of health ministers of 10 Chikungunya affected states here.
The study team, comprising of three WHO offcials, and officials of National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) and National Institute of Virology (NIV), visited Kerala last week to review the deaths due to Chikungunya.
The team reviewed 58 deaths and found that none of them had died of the viral disease, Habayeb said, adding "The deaths were due to co-infections and underlying causes."
Ramadoss have been maintaining since the Chikungunya outbreak comes up that there have been no deaths due to the viral infection.
Kerala Government has been claiming that 86 people have died due to the infections. The report will be soon submitted.
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