There's a dengue fever epidemic in India. The Indian government wants to suppress this unpleasant fact. Here's how they do it. From the New York Times article today:
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The latest figure from the Delhi government is that 1,355 people in the city have tested positive for dengue this season. But, in just the first half of September, one general practitioner, Dr. Nandita Chakraborty, treated 263 patients who tested positive for dengue. “Then I stopped counting,” she said.
The general medical opinion is that tens of thousands in New Delhi have been infected, and the figure could be in the millions in India.
All doctors have to report dengue cases to public health officials, but they get the hint from the government that they need not be so conscientious about contributing to data. Dr. Chakraborty said that health officials asked her “too many questions” and demanded excessive documentation to prove her diagnosis of dengue cases, until she concluded that they did not really want her to report the numbers.
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The latest figure from the Delhi government is that 1,355 people in the city have tested positive for dengue this season. But, in just the first half of September, one general practitioner, Dr. Nandita Chakraborty, treated 263 patients who tested positive for dengue. “Then I stopped counting,” she said.
The general medical opinion is that tens of thousands in New Delhi have been infected, and the figure could be in the millions in India.
All doctors have to report dengue cases to public health officials, but they get the hint from the government that they need not be so conscientious about contributing to data. Dr. Chakraborty said that health officials asked her “too many questions” and demanded excessive documentation to prove her diagnosis of dengue cases, until she concluded that they did not really want her to report the numbers.
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