75 bodies received for autopsy in three days in Noida: Gautam Buddh Nagar CMO

Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], June 22 (ANI): Amid the heatwave conditions, Gautam Buddh Nagar’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Sunil Sharma on Friday said that the district health department received at least 75 bodies for post-mortem within three days from June 18-20.

CMO Sharma said that hospitals had received 20 as “brought dead” and 10 of them were “unidentified.”

“In the last three days, the number of dead bodies has increased. On June 18-20, we received 75 dead bodies. 20 of them were brought dead. And out of those 20, 10 of them were unclaimed. The capacity of the postmortem house is 10-12 bodies,” CMO Sharma told ANI.

He further said that the department could not conclusively say if these deaths were directly caused due to the heatwave.

“But we have tied up with hospitals and now our capacity is increased… Three doctors have been appointed to perform the postmortem on the bodies. The reason for the deaths can be confirmed after the postmortem but the possibility that the reason for the deaths is heatwave, cannot be ruled out,” he added.

The heatwave in large parts of the country has claimed 114 lives and more than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases have been reported between March 1 and June 19 this year, according to sources from the Union Health Ministry.

According to the sources, this data isn’t a final submission from all the states and numbers are expected to be more than this.

The data shows 4 deaths on June 19, 2024, and seven expected deaths due to heatstroke.

The maximum number of deaths are reported from Uttar Pradesh (37), Bihar (17), Rajasthan (16), and Odisha (13). This is the data compiled under the National Heat-Related Illness and Death Surveillance by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

On Wednesday Union Health Minister JP Nadda held a meeting and directed special heatwave units to be set up in all central government hospitals to cater to such patients

He also urged people to take preventive measures to avoid dehydration, “I also urge the public to give special focus to liquid diet and have more and more water to avoid dehydration…”