Heatwave-related deaths under-reported in Telangana

Have the heatwave deaths miraculously ceased to exist or are the cases simply getting under-reported due to difficulties in the reporting system?

Hyderabad: It may sound strange but is true! Despite experiencing what could be the toughest spell of heat wave conditions that people of Telangana had to face in recent times, the health department has not reported any heatwave related fatality this year.

Have the heatwave deaths miraculously ceased to exist or are the cases simply getting under-reported due to difficulties in the reporting system?

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Barring sporadic spells of thundershowers, for a large part of the past three months, temperatures in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri and the other districts have consistently hovered between 40 degree Celsius and 46 degree Celsius. However, despite months of severe summer, not a single individual has died due to heat wave in Telangana, according to state public health data.

A large section of patients who might have suffered symptoms due to heat wave during summer usually prefer private healthcare institutions like a nursing home, clinic or a private hospital. At present, there is no mechanism of sharing of data of heat wave cases between private healthcare institutions and public health department. This perennial problem of no data sharing could be a major factor for under-reporting.

There are two other major factors that dictate reporting of heat wave cases. The first being the possibility of issuing compensation to relatives of heat wave victims and the second one being the inherently complex procedure of confirming a heat wave death, especially among individuals with co-morbidities, according to senior public health officials and seasonal diseases experts.

“Elderly persons with history of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and kidney failure quite often become victim of heat wave, even remaining indoors. Similarly, infants and sick individuals also struggle to control their high temperatures internally. Such deaths are not categorized as heat strokes and they do not get reported or counted as heat deaths,” senior government doctors here said.

Seasonal disease experts in Hyderabad pointed out that it is extremely difficult in a government sector to define the death of an individual due to heat wave.

“I believe that in urban centres, there was a lot of awareness on heat wave and people completely avoided venturing out. However, this was not the case in districts, where such cases went unreported,” senior public health official in Hyderabad said.

What is a heat wave death?

• Heat-related death: It is defined as a death in which exposure to high ambient temperature either caused the death or significantly contributed to it.

• When body temperature at the time of collapse was more than 105 degree F or more than 40.6 degree C, then cause of death should be heat stroke or hyperthermia

• Significant number of these deaths occur in persons having some preexisting disease

• Such deaths can be certified as heat-related, with the disease being considered a significant contributing condition, or vice versa.

(Source: National Disaster Management Authority)