A boy died of suspected dengue here today, though the state health department was yet to confirm it and preferred to wait for the final blood test report.
"The death report says that the boy died because of Pneumonia. But he tested positive for the Dengue serology antigen test done by a private pathologist which we don't accept," West Bengal Health Services Director Biswaranjan Satpathy told PTI today.
The 14-year-old boy, a resident of Garia's Tripureswari area in southern part of the city, had been suffering from high fever since August 16 and was admitted at the Bangur Hospital on August 28, he said.
"We will wait for the test report conducted on the boy to declare it whether it is a case of Dengue death. Until then it should be treated as a pneumonia death," Satpathy said.
Meanwhile, talking about the Japanese Encephalitis (JE) scenario in the city, Satpathy said a sero surveillance done at the Bodyguard Lines area tested negative.
"All the 12 samples collected from the area have tested negative and per se we can say that Kolkata is absolutely safe from JE," he said.
Incidentally, it was a Kolkata Police official, a resident of Alipore Bodyguard Lines, who died of JE last Friday prompting the health department to go in for a sero surveillance in the area, he said.
No fresh death, nor a new case of Encephalitis was reported from any part of the state, Satpathy said.
