'I pray no parent loses their child to dengue as I have'

"My daughter was very strong. You couldn't really tell from looking at her just how much pain she was in, how badly she was suffering. I remember the doctor asking us to give her some water and she gulped from the bottle just a minute before she breathed her last," said a grieving father recalling his child's final moments.

It has been just over a week since 17 year-old Tasnia succumbed to the dengue virus on Saturday (2 September).

Her father Khaleque Mahmud Babu recounted the harrowing days since the virus was contracted. 

"I couldn't quite grasp that we were losing her... My daughter passed away just after four days of running a fever,'' Khaleque said in a conversation with The Business Standard.

Khaleque, a contractor by profession, residing in the capital's Mirpur area, said at the end of last month, everyone at their home had come down with a fever.

They started to heal within a day except Tasnia – she was running a high fever and was finally diagnosed with dengue on 29 August.

Under the supervision of a Shishu Hospital doctor, she was administered saline treatment at home.

She started throwing up as her condition worsened within three days of fever. She was later admitted to a DNCC dedicated hospital for dengue.

As her condition further deteriorated, she was being taken to Dhanmondi's Ibn Sina on Saturday (2 September) where she would require treatment in the ICU.

Tasnia died on the way. She was later buried in the Shahid Buddhijibi Graveyard.

A dream turned cold

Tasnia had just passed SSC this year. She had also applied for college.

"My two daughters, Tasfia and Tasnia, were practically twins, although they were born 14 months apart. Both sisters passed SSC with excellent results. My younger daughter Tasnia used to worry if both sisters would get to study in the same college. She figured studying in different colleges might become difficult for us.

"Thankfully, they both got accepted at the Dhaka Shiksha Board Laboratory School and College. We even deposited the fees for the admission of our elder daughter. But Tasnia did not live long enough to attend college," said Khaleque.

'No less than Covid-19'

Despite all efforts – with medical bills surging to about Tk50,000 within two days, amid struggles of locating available ICUs in the city for dengue patients – Tasnia could not be saved.

Her parents could only watch helplessly, having turned every stone they could.

"Dengue is no less than corona! And yet, there is no such initiative to deal with an epidemic as lethal as dengue. People are dying from dengue every day and there is no action to permanently eradicate these deadly mosquitoes," Khaleque said.

If there are more articles and reports written about dengue and its dangers, it will benefit the common people, he added.

"My daughter is gone; we lost her to dengue. I pray that no more children get sick from this infection and no parent loses their child to dengue as I have," he said.

A losing battle

This year, the number of dengue cases and deaths surpassed all previous records.

At least 2,993 dengue patients were hospitalised in the past 24 hours till Sunday morning across the country, which was the highest single day reported cases this year.

This pushes the caseload from the mosquito-borne disease this year to 1,48,328

Earlier, on 10 August 2959 dengue patients were hospitalised.

Also, 14 more deaths were reported from dengue during the period, raising the death toll to 730 this year.

Of the new patients, 994 were admitted to hospitals in Dhaka and 1,999 outside Dhaka City, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

So far, 1,37,727 dengue patients were released from hospitals in the country this year.

A total of 9871 dengue patients, including 4297 in Dhaka, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country, shows the DGHS data.

Dhaka and Chattogram divisions have the highest number of dengue cases.

The dengue outbreak has been worse in 2023 than in previous years.

Last year, hospitals up and down the country reported 62,382 patients taking medical care, and the death toll stood at 281, the highest since the record-keeping began for dengue hospitalisations in the 1960s.

Bangladesh witnessed over 1,00,000 dengue hospitalisation in 2019, which stands as the record number of cases in a single year. The official death toll that year was recorded as 179.