The death of a five-year-old boy from Korukkupet has created a fresh cholera scare in the city.
While the outbreak of Acute Diarrheal Disease had let up over the past week, three patients with severe symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting were admitted to the Communicable Diseases Hospital at Tondiarpet on Tuesday, raising speculations that the cholera bacterium was doing the rounds again.
According to sources, the child Sathish was taken to Stanley Government Hospital on August 3 with complaints of diarrhoea, but he died on the way to hospital.
“Corporation officials who came to know about the death received the body the next day and cremated my son in Moolakothalam burial ground”, Sathish’s father Suresh told reporters, alleging that the civic body was trying to bury the fact that his son had cholera.
However a senior corporation official clarified that the boy was cremated by his parents, in the presence of corporation staff. “Four children from the same family were taken to Stanley hospital with diarrhoea. One boy died.
When doctors at the hospital wanted to do a post mortem on the child, his mother refused and took his body away. However the three other children were shifted to CDH for treatment; they tested negative for cholera.
They are doing well and are being discharged,” the official said assuring that there have been no fresh cases of cholera in Chennai in the past two weeks.
“The corporation should be transparent while dealing with cholera cases. The entire north Chennai is suffering from poor sanitation with incidence of communicable diseases in hospitals”, alleged former Mayor M. Subramanian.