A 43-year-old woman from Deganga in North 24-Parganas died of dengue at the Beleghata Infectious Diseases Hospital on Sunday.
The woman was admitted to the hospital on Saturday evening, said a doctor at the hospital.
Farida Bibi was first admitted to Barasat Government Medical College, from where she was discharged on Thursday. She again became unwell at home on Friday and was admitted to the Beleghata hospital on Saturday.
“When she was wheeled in, she was still conscious. But she passed out within minutes of being shifted to the ward,” said the doctor.
The death certificate mentioned “dengue shock syndrome”.
Doctors and state government officials said dengue infections are reported throughout the year, though the number of infections is more during summer and the monsoon.
An official at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said 28 dengue cases were reported in the city last week.
Though the number of dengue infections has declined, one cannot say how an infection will progress in a person, said a doctor.
Debasish Biswas, chief vector control officer at the KMC, said the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the primary transmitter of the dengue virus, is most active when the temperatures vary between 16 and 40 degrees Celsius.
“The average temperature in Kolkata in January, the city’s coldest month, is 16.9 degrees Celsius,” said Biswas. That means the situation remains conducive to breeding of dengue-spreading mosquitoes even at the height of winter.
But breeding sites — pools of fresh water — drastically reduce during winter, which is why the incidence of the disease declines.
“But there still remains some water sources, like a clogged drain or a well in a house which can turn into mosquito-breeding sites. The number of sources reduces but does not become zero. So people continue to suffer from dengue in December and January but in far fewer numbers compared with the monsoon,” said an entomologist.
Biswas said the KMC has coined the slogan “Sojag thakun bochhorbhor, January theke December (Beware from January to December)” to fight dengue because one can contract the disease at any time of the year.
