Hyderabad, July 08: Health Minister DL Ravindra Reddy on Thursday said that efforts are on to identify the unspecified fever which has claimed the lives of 12 tribals in Mannem of Visakhapatnam districts and medical teams have been dispatched to the region.
The Minister is dashing off to Visakhapatnam on July 9 to collect a firsthand account of some 12 deaths reportedly from Mannem, the tribal area in the district. The district Collector informed the Minister that some 10 to 12 people reportedly died due to unspecified fever.
The Minister informed that he was not clear about the diagnosis and was rushing to the district for ascertaining the cause of deaths. “Whether it is malaria or diarrhoea is not clear,” Health and Medical Education Minister D L Ravindra Reddy told media persons at the Secretariat on Thursday.
He added that 20 medical teams have been dispatched from the district head quarters to the tribal area. “As many as five doctors and staff nurses and others have been sent for enquiry,” the Minister said.
Expressing concern over the said deaths of the innocent Tribals, the Minister asserted that efforts would be made to update their awareness and then provide medical care to them as far as possible.
Meanwhile, the much talked about Legislation in respect of keeping the clinical trials on humans under check is yet to be introduced. In the recent past, the clinical trials on women victims from Guntur district evoked great deal of controversy with both the Central and state governments coming at the receiving end with no proper check on those going ahead with the said trials.
“It is a Central subject and it takes time,” Dr Ravindra Reddy said when asked when the proposed Legislation would be introduced.
Meanwhile the erring Axis Clinicals Limited has been under seize for subjecting the victims from Piduguralla in Guntur district to said trials for promoting its business.
Asked about the current supposed political turmoil which was created due to the resignations of the Ministers and other Legislators from Telangana region, the Health Minister brushed it aside stating that their resignations affected the administration in the least.
He was of the opinion that such ‘hiccups’ arose in any administration, but he went on to clarify again that there were some problems which would be addressed.
Fielding another question, Dr Ravindra Reddy replied that the Seemandhra leaders would visit New Delhi to meet the leadership but he was not part of the team.
——-Agencies