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Bengal CM has second thoughts
about visiting Siliguri

This when the killer disease was gradually spreading to neighbouring districts with the death toll mounting to 37 while the number of affected being treated at the hospital being 19.

According to Minister for Urban Development Ashok Bhattacharya, the chief minister would visit Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri district on March three to address a meeting.

He was also scheduled to address a public meeting at Siliguri that day, but the meeting had been cancelled in the wake of the outbreak of the undiagnosed fever in the town.

Bhattacharya, elected to the state Assembly from Siliguri was talking to newspersons at the secretariat in Calcutta after his return from the town on Monday morning.

Claiming that the situation was now under control, he claimed that no fresh deaths had been reported on Monday.

Experts from the National Institute of Virology, Pune and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Calcutta, have returned after collecting blood samples.

He said action would be taken against nearly 60 house staff and internees of the North Bengal Medical College who had fled following the outbreak of the disease.

To a question, the minister said that 26 people have died of the disease till date since its outbreak.

In sharp contrast, Siliguri's Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Health)-II, Dr Saibal Banerjee, said 36 persons died in Siliguri since February five, one death at MJN Hospital in Cooch Behar was reported by District Magistrate Indeevar Pandey at a press conference.

Pandey said leave of all doctors, nurses and health workers were cancelled to meet the situation. He said the administration was making inquiry about the whereabouts of some patients who had reportedly returned home defying order to report to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital.

The fever claimed four more lives since February eight till date in Cooch Behar, according to unofficial sources.

One patient from Jalpaiguri was admitted at the NBMCH while two others from Cooch Behar were referred to the NBMCH, officials said.

Union Health Minister C P Thakur said in Delhi that the Centre was planning to seek the help of the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA, to identify the disease.

He did not rule out the chances of its originating from biological warfare. Even after three weeks, 'experts so far are not sure on what kind of a fever it is', Thakur said.

Siliguri SDO Rajesh Sinha said all district administrations of North Bengal were requested to refer all cases of the mystery fever to the NBMCH to help restrict its spread, which doctors and experts unanimously termed as 'highly infectious'.

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