MUMBAI, May 15: In the most damning discovery in the jaundice epidemic engulfing Kalyan-Dombivli, the team representing the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) has found a phenomenal 490 cases in Tilak Nagar alone.The team, led by Dr Subhash Dodvade, joint director of health services, Pune, has been deputed by the Maharashtra government to assess the situation in this township whose 96 wards have been engulfed by the epidemic since early May.The team has commenced its survey in Tilak Nagar, Dombivli, as the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) had detected 118 cases in this ward (No 90), NIV representatives say. And the results are astounding.``We have collected blood and stool samples from other neighbourhoods as well and are trying to identify and confirm whether the virus responsible is Hepatitis A or E,'' Dr Dodvade said.A team comprising Dr Nitin Vairagkar, Dr Manjit Chheda and Dr K Sakpal is visiting vulnerable areas and collecting samples along with Dr Dodvade. They arebeing accompanied by Municipal Commissioner Madhukar Kokate and his deputy (in-charge of Dombivli) Sanjat Gharat.The KDMC administration, which had calimed the incidence of jaundice was far lower than reported, has been censured by the state government for not responding to the emergency with alacrity. Now, it is juggling figures to support its claims.Says Gharat: ``Our records show that the total number of cases in Kalyan-Dombivli is 237 only. I don't know where the figure of 490 has come from.'' But even as the administration debates the severity of the epidemic, the death roll mounts. With Mariah Rosy (50) of Ambernath succumbing on Thursday, the body count in Kalyan-Dombivli, Ulhasnagar and Ambernath has risen to 23.But residents are not the only ones affected by the epidemic. Ulhasnagar Municipal Commissioner S H School was almost decapitated at the corporation's general body meeting today, when a Republican Party of India (RPI) corporator almost flung a chair at him when the epidemic was beingdebated. The meeting erupted in chaos as soon as the issue was raised by Jaya Sadhwani (Cong) and Jyoti Kalani (UPP). Corporators, cutting across party lines, instantly attacked the administration in general and the commissioner in particular for ``the sorry state of affairs''. When Sadhwani urged the House to maintain two-minutes' silence to condole the death of Lata Vijay Udasi (27), who died on May 9, the commissioner allegedly laughed at her suggestion.The entire Opposition demanded that he be asked to leave the House ``as he has insulted it''. An enraged RPI corporator, B B More, seized a chair to fling it at Shool but was tripped up in time by Congress members. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party members, however, said the commissioner should be allowed to explain before taking such an extreme step.However, the pandemonium that followed drowned out everything else thereafter and the meeting was soon adjourned.
