the goan I network
PANAJI
The shocking death of a budding, Panaji-based entrepreneur Yash Salgaonkar, all of 24 years of age, plunged the young man’s vast circle of family and friends in deep grief early Sunday morning and brought the focus back on the looming threat to public health posed by dengue.
Yash, passed away of a “massive cardiac arrest” moments after he collapsed in the washroom of a city clinic early Sunday morning.
He had been diagnosed with dengue a couple of weeks ago. However, he was discharged from another private hospital after he had recovered from its symptoms, family sources said.
Just a few days ago, he along with his brother had launched a new snack food venture “Roll Runner” in the Tonca-St Inez area, but fell ill soon after and was admitted to the city clinic.
His family sources said, his platelete counts dropped drastically to 70,000 and blood sugar levels shot up to 500-plus leading to the massive cardiac arrest.
Meanwhile, the unfortunate death of the youth in his prime has brought into sharp focus the looming threat to public health posed by dengue.
The dreaded vector-borne disease has left health department officials in the State grappling with a problem which is apparently beyond their grip, far greater than the threat malaria had posed a couple of decades ago.
Health Department officials have struggled through the current monsoon season to control outbreaks of dengue. At the end of August, 62 cases were confirmed in the State.
A total of 141 cases of dengue were confirmed up to August-end this year.
Dengue has no prescribed treatment regimen and symptoms differ from patient to patient. Therefore, managing the disease clinically is that much more difficult and it being a viral fever doesn’t help the cause, at least two top Panaji-based physicians said.
From the public health point of view, health officials are struggling to get civic bodies, other government agencies and the general public on board to rid the state of stagnant water pools and other mosquito breeding grounds from neighbourhoods in the State.
