SRINAGAR, Oct 23: Mumbai city’s municipal corporation has sought medical reports of filmmaker Yash Chopra who died of dengue on Sunday, to ascertain whether he had contracted the fever in the city or during his stay in Kashmir recently.
“We’re not sure whether the dengue-causing mosquito bit him here or in Kashmir,” a senior Mumbai health official said on condition of anonymity.
A civic health team, said the official, will scrutinise Chopra’s reports at the time of his admission and it could throw light on whether he had dengue during the initial period of hospitalisation.
“This could indicate the possibility that he had dengue in the early days,” said the official.
Chopra was cremated on Monday afternoon.
The issue is important for Mumbai as additional municipal commissioner, Manisha Mhaiskar, claimed that the number of mosquito-breeding spots in the city has decreased, and consequently the number of patients has also gone down.
Chopra was in Kashmir recently to shoot for Shahrukh Khan starrer, Jab Tak Hai Jaan. But doctors say the chances of the filmmaker’s dengue having been contracted in the valley are very rare.
“Dengue fever is not known to occur in Kashmir. People in Kashmir who are diagnosed with Dengue fever acquire it only if they have travelled out of Kashmir to endemic areas like Delhi…mosquitoes in Kashmir are harmless except for their bites…. they don’t transmit any diseases like malaria or dengue fever,” a doctor told this site.
(with inputs from DNA)
