9 deaths due to monkey fever in Shivamogga district since Dec 2018
Shivamogga, Jan 25: A total of nine deaths due to Kyatsandra Forest Disease, also known as monkey fever, has been reported in Shivamogga district since it broke out there in December 2018, the Karnataka health department said Friday.
Releasing the data, the department said 100 positive cases had been identified in the district since December 24, 2018, of whom nine had died.
This apart, 120 monkeys too died of the disease, including eight on Friday in Shivamogga, it said.
A health officer said 20,362 people have been vaccinated till date, including 208 on Friday.
"We are carrying out field surveillance and have so far surveyed 374 villages, he said.
Shivamogga District Surveillance Officer Dr. B.S Shankarappa had Thursday allayed fears, saying early diagnosis was the key to control KFD, a tick-borne viral hemorrhagic fever endemic to South Asia, and that people with poor immunity level might be more susceptible to it.
Since the disease is caused by tick, the district authorities were distributing insect repellent. Besides, a vaccination drive was also underway, the DSO had said.
The virus spreads through parasitic ticks which latch on to monkeys and is transmitted to human through tick bites. It was first reported in the country from Kyasanur forests in Shivamogga district in 1957 and hence came to be known as KFD.
The KFD infection, which starts with high fever and body ache, results in hemorrhage, similar to that in dengue.
Meanwhile, the district health officer in Mysuru denied that two deaths reported in the district were of monkey fever. He said the deaths were reported from a village bordering Kerala and added that their investigation revealed that one of them had died of suspected brain haemorrhage and the other of pneumonia.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
