Rat fever: High alert as Kerala toll rises
Kozhikode (Kerala), Sep 3 : Kerala was put on high alert for three weeks as two more people succumbed to rat fever on Monday, taking the death toll to nine in the past three days following unprecedented floods.
Seventy-one others were said to be carrying the disease in Kozhikode and Pathanamthitta districts.
The disease transmits from animals to humans and the risk of getting it is high during floods.
Barring Kasargode district, rains and floods had affected all the other 13 districts of the state. Around two million people in the state have come in contact with the flood waters, forcing the government to ask the people to take preventive care.
Addressing reporters here after presiding over a review meeting, Health Minister K.K. Shailaja said Kerala would be on high alert for the next three weeks.
"There is no need to panic... The high incidence is on account of the floods. Despite several advisories, people are not listening and taking preventive medicines as advised," she said.
She said that all the hospitals had been equipped with medicines to the needy.
With Kozhikode reporting the maximum number of cases, an isolation ward has been opened at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital.
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Sri Lanka repatriates remains of 84 Iranian sailors killed in US torpedo strike
Colombo (PTI): Sri Lanka has repatriated the remains of 84 Iranian sailors who were killed when their frigate was sunk by a US submarine, an official said.
Last week on Wednesday, Sri Lanka said it had recovered 84 bodies of Iranian sailors after the US submarine attack sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off Galle on the island’s southern coast.
The ship was returning to Iran from Visakhapatnam, India, where it had participated in a naval fleet review exercise.
"Human remains were sent by the Iranian embassy on Friday - all 84", a foreign ministry spokesman said.
They were sent on a chartered Turkish airliner, which departed on Friday, reporters present at the Mattala international airport in the southern district of Hambantota said.
The Chief Magistrate, Sameera Dodangoda, gave the order on March 11 to the Director of the National Hospital at Karapitiya to hand over 84 bodies of the sailors from Iris Dena to the Embassy of Iran.
Following the magistrate's court order, the arrangements were finalised.
The bodies were kept at the Karapitiya hospital in Galle along with 32 survivors who were warded as a result of the US torpedo attack on the ship on March 4.
The Sri Lankan government had earlier said they will be keeping the bodies until the situation would improve so as to repatriate them.
They were being kept under makeshift refrigeration as the hospital’s morgue capacity was found inadequate.
The 32 survivors had been discharged on Sunday and sent to the nearby Sri Lankan airbase at Koggala, Galle.
