Famous dental surgeon Dr Ashwini Dobhal died on Monday due to dengue. He was admitted in a leading private hospital of the city on August 22 with complaint of high fever was later detected with dengue. On Monday morning, he succumbed to the disease. Meanwhile, 21 new cases of dengue were reported in the district on Monday.

The district health department meanwhile has said that the exact reason of death of Dr Dobhal would be done after death audit.

The death of Dr Dobhal who was a well known personality of the city shocked those who knew him. Large number of people from all walks of life attended the funeral of Dr Dobhal.

When contacted, Dr Prem Narayan who was treating Dr Dobhal said that his condition deteriorated when internal bleeding started. He said that he was suffering from dengue shock syndrome which affected his vital organs.

The district vector borne diseases officer, Subhash Joshi said that the sample of Dr Dobhal was taken for Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) on Monday. The ELISA test is confirmatory test of dengue. He added that the exact reason of death of Dr Dobhal would be known after the death audit. The state health department has started the practice of doing death audit of all the patients who had died due to dengue. In it a team of doctors studies the case history of the deceased thoroughly. In a recent case of death of a female patient who was found positive for dengue in ELISA, the department gave a verdict that she was suffering from other diseases as well which resulted in her death.

Meanwhile, the menace of dengue is showing no sign of abating as 21 new cases of the disease were reported by district health department of Dehradun on Monday. With them the dengue toll in Dehradun has mounted to 580.

The district vector borne diseases officer Subhash Joshi said that teams of health department and Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) are visiting the affected areas and activities like fogging and spread of insecticides are being undertaken apart from spreading awareness on preventive measures to be adopted for the disease.

He said that people should ensure that the breeding places of mosquitoes inside their homes and vicinity are destroyed.

The symptoms of Dengue are persistently high fever, rashes, headache and pain in the joints. In the acute cases the platelets number decrease drastically which could prove fatal for the patient.