Anantapur in dengue grip, AP declares emergency

The Andhra Pradesh government, which was inactive till dengue fever spread across Anantapur, declared a medical emergency in the district on Sunday.

The government shut down all Registered Medical Practitioners (RMP) across Anantapur district, fearing wrong diagnosis and treatment of patients by quacks.

The order came after Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the situation from the central command centre at Amaravati on Saturday and asked the district administration to take note of the gravity of the situation, following the death of two children from Vinayak Nagar in Anantapur. Siblings Mohammed Idris (12) and

Mohammed Junaid (10) were initially treated by an RMP in Anantapur, but were shifted to a private hospital in Bengaluru, where they died.

As a result, all unregistered clinics in Rayadurgam, Madakasira, Dharmavaram, Kadiri, Guntakal, Gutti, Penukonda and Kalyandurgam have been shut down till further notice.
As of Sunday, 144 dengue and 506 malaria cases have been registered in various government and private hospitals in the district.

The district administration sought to declare a health emergency as its directions were not being taken seriously by private hospitals. “All the private hospitals where the affected people go for initial treatment were asked to send blood samples to the
Anantapur Medical College by 10 am daily without fail, but no one cares,” a medical officer at the dengue ward said.