The Hindu : New Delhi News : Resignations of Health Minister, Mayor demanded

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Friday, Oct 20, 2006
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Resignations of Health Minister, Mayor demanded

Staff Reporter

`Govt. is not declaring dengue an epidemic'

NEW DELHI: Accusing the Delhi Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi of complete failure to control the dengue menace, the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Jagdish Mukhi, on Thursday demanded resignation of Delhi's Health Minister, Yoganand Shastri, and Mayor Farhad Suri saying they had lost the moral right to remain in office.

Mr. Mukhi also alleged that the Government was not declaring dengue an epidemic -- though more than 50 people had died and over 4,000 have been affected by the disease -- as it was already on the back-foot over the sealing issue.

"It seems that due to the sealing situation in Delhi, the Government's (popularity) graph has gone down and hence it was dishing out concocted stories about the number of patients and deaths," said Mr. Mukhi.

Mr. Mukhi said the World Health Organisation and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) had issued instructions to treat the dengue patients in separate wards and provide them with mosquito nets so that the infection does not spread to the hospital staff, including doctors.

However, the Government took no such step as a result of which employees and students of the hospital contracted the disease and some even lost their lives.

"This is a serious lapse on the part of the Government and it is solely responsible for the acts of omission," he alleged

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