Three students dead, 20,000 cases: Tamil Nadu's dengue crisis turns fatal

Chennai, Oct 5 — Three students dead in a single week. More than 20,000 dengue cases across the state. And a Health Secretary who says the situation has "stabilised". Tamil Nadu's dengue crisis crossed a grim threshold this weekend, with the death of Anna University student Harish Kumar on Thursday — after persistent fever — following the deaths of two fellow students, Mridula and Jayashree, just four days earlier. Anxiety now ripples across the campus, where 156 people suffering from fever were admitted to city hospitals in a single day, 87 of them testing positive for dengue. The official line remains reassuring. Health Secretary Darez Ahamed, inspecting dengue-prevention works in Teynampet on Sunday, said Chennai had recorded 4,592 cases this year "without a death so far", and that every fever case was being tested for early diagnosis and appropriate management. Until September 15, the state had logged 16,577 infections and nine deaths; the Directorate of Public Health now records nearly 200 cases a day. Director A. Somasundaram called the trend "static" rather than exponential and said the numbers were expected to decline soon. The civic machinery lists its defences: 3,703 mosquito-eradication workers and 1,250 larvicidal spraying machines deployed across Chennai, more than 100 medical camps held every day, and Rs 7.2 lakh in fines imposed over the past month on establishments and households that failed to remove waste. Ahead of the northeast monsoon, desilting of stormwater drains is claimed to be 99 per cent complete, with Rs 1,100 crore allocated to clear pending payments, Rs 100 crore set aside by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay for monsoon-preparedness works, and 215 relief centres and 111 community kitchens kept ready. The opposition is not buying the calm. Naam Tamilar Katchi chief coordinator Seeman blamed the TVK government's alleged negligence for the surge, demanding the distribution of nilavembu decoction and kabasura kudineer on a war footing at places where people gather in large numbers. Health Minister Arun Raj, for his part, told reporters that dengue cases had shown only a "marginal increase" over the past seven days and urged the public not to panic, attributing the rise partly to "seasonal variations". The timing is politically brutal. On Monday morning, Madurantakam and Dharapuram vote in by-elections billed as the three-month-old TVK government's first electoral test. A government that can deploy 2,000 policemen for a chief minister's roadshow now stands accused of failing to keep mosquitoes off its own university campuses. The mosquitoes, at least, are voting with their bites.