PANAJI
One of the most affected areas in Goa's current dengue cases surge and bracketed among four hotspots by the health authorities, the spike in cases continues to rage in the tourist hub of Calangute and neighbouring Candolim.
In the current month of September, which still has a couple of more days to end, Calangute village alone reportedly had 107 cases of 'suspected dengue' detected through the panchayat's testing initiative.
The free testing facility provided by the Calangute panchayat screened 415 residents in September thus far through the rapid test kits and 107 of them were found to have been infected but are all being treated as 'suspected cases' by the health system, which only counts those with the standard ELISA test as confirmed dengue cases.
The panchayat's intervention came in the face of rising cases across the State and taking into consideration that Calangute hosts a large number of migrants serving in the tourism industry.
According to Calangute Sarpanch, Joseph Sequeira, 415 people were tested in the last 27 days and on the advice of Dr Divkar, those who tested positive with the rapid test kit were also provided free medicines.
