June 5, 2013, 9:30 pm



By Dilanthi Jayamanne


A student of the Colombo Law Faculty who was receiving treatment at the Colombo National Hospital for dengue died of the disease yesterday morning. S.J. Nisansala Samarasinghe (21) was a second year law student.


 NHSL sources said that she was being treated at the National Hospital ICU. Nisansala was admitted to the hospital on May 30 and had received treatment at the ICU for the last three days.


She was a resident of Debathgama, Kegalle.


Meanwhile, the Colombo Municipal Council yesterday said it would hold discussions with the Ministries of Defence and Health to expedite the city cleaning up programme to fight the growing menace of dengue.


Chief of the Public Health Department, Dr. Pradeep Kariyawasam said that they would have to combine efforts and get all concerned parties involved in controlling the situation.


Dr. Kariyawasam said that the number of dengue deaths in the city had risen to four with the death of the law faculty student being treated at the National Hospital yesterday morning.


He said that the CMC had inspected 147 schools, 82 government and semi-government institutions in the city and 37 of them had been issued with notices.
Legal action had been instituted against three of those institutions, he said.


The total number of dengue cases in the city from January to date has been 1,251. About 15 cases were reported within the first five days of this month.


However, there had been a 20 percent drop in the number of cases reported in May (202) when compared to numbers recorded during the same month last year which was 220, Dr. Kariyawasam said.

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