First it was heart diseases now it’s Tuberculosis! Mumbai people be careful the medical fraternity has something concerning to tell! Mumbai is enveloped in a new medical curse- Tuberculosis. The next big hazard that the people face is from hypertension, and diabetes says the municipal data.
Tuberculosis deadly killer
According to the data gathered over the past year(2012-13),it has been revealed that Tuberculosis or TB is the main killer of the people from amongst the other medical problems they faced . The report was retrieved by using the Right to information Act and tuberculosis winning over the host of diseases was deduced from the “cause of death” report statistics that were handed over by the city’s municipal corporation.In 2011-12 nearly 30,675 tuberculosis cases had been detected in this metropolitan town but the rise of this number to about 36,417 cases in 2012-13 is concerning.
The data showed that the death toll in Mumbai was recorded as 85,802 people and 8.1% out of them succumbed to tuberculosis, which makes it around 6,921 persons roughly. This score was chased by blood pressure about 4.6% and diabetes 2.9% . Both diabetes and hypertension are listed as non-communicable diseases.
Malaria, dengue,cholera cases
Results put forth on the white paper by a non-profit organization in the city called the Praja Foundation, show that there is a dip in the malaria cases since 2010-11. The foundation used the RTI act in order to get the valid information. The city also faces another deadly menace –dengue!
Cholera and dengue have marched forward leaving malaria behind and is wreaking havoc on the Mumbaikars.
In 2011-12 the hospitals and dispensaries that came under the Municiapal Government and the state reported nearly 1879 cases. This number rose in 2012-13 and showed a figure of 4,867, that is almost a double and this is concerning!
Data further shows that Mumbai saw nine people die of cholera in 2012-13 but the data put forth by municipal health officials did not show up any cholera deaths in the hospitals run by the civic body.
Nitai Mehta,the founding trustee of Praja Foundation was heard commenting “The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation relies only on figures that it receives in its surveillance reports and not on figures from death certificates that it issues.” Does this mean that the 70% people who visit private clinics etc have not been included in the survey?
According to Mehta “It is appalling that the civic body has not devised any mechanism to gather data from private hospitals when a majority of the population throngs the doors of private hospitals. In such a case, the study of public health in the city will be skewed.”
