Techie dies, officials say no dengue death in Bengaluru yet!

Bengaluru: Thirty-one-year-old Shwetha's family is inconsolable at the loss of their daughter to dengue. A resident of K.R. Garden, Murugeshpalya, the young engineer working for Oracle succumbed to the dreaded disease on Friday.

“Since last Saturday, she had fever. The family took her to a general physician who gave her antibiotics. But, suddenly she fell seriously ill and was admitted to Manipal Hospital for a few days,” says one of the family friends who was waiting for the body before cremation around 4 pm on Sunday.  

The family said Shwetha died after suffering multiple organ failure on Friday.  The body was, however, kept for two days at the hospital's mortuary as the family wanted her brother working in Australia to perform the last rites.

“Her parents were searching for a groom for her and none of us knew this could happen to her. Last year too, she was down with dengue, but was cured," said her family friends. Murugeshpalya is one of the numerous areas in the city that has not seen fumigation in months.

"Around the same time last year, BBMP workers had fumigated the area. The only option for us is to stay indoors and take precautionary measures," said Anusha, a resident at one of the apartments in K.R. Garden.

BBMP in its budget has earmarked Rs 8 crore for mosquito-control. Yet, no fogging is taking place. But the authorities continued to maintain that there has been no dengue death yet.

"It is not a confirmed dengue death and there has been no dengue death reported in the city so far. The information I have is that she had other complications as well. So far, 841 confirmed dengue cases have been reported from 400 hospitals in the city," said Dr Shiv Kumar, District Health Officer, Bengaluru Urban.