Cuttack, July 27: A 25-year-old man today died at SCB Medical College and Hospital with family members suspecting it to be a case of dengue.

The hospital authorities, however, are yet to confirm this as the deceased, Eswar Rao, who hailed from Rauspatna, had not been admitted to the dengue ward and was also suffering from diarrhoea.

Family members of Eswar said he had been suffering from high fever for the past five days and was first admitted to city hospital. His blood tests showed him to be dengue positive.

“Doctors at city hospital asked us to shift Eswar to SCB after his blood reports confirmed that he was suffering from dengue yesterday. We had rushed him to SCB around 8am,” said M. Ratna Rao, a family member.

Ratna said Eswar, who was also suffering from diarrhoea, died around 3:25pm.

Following the death, tension prevailed as local residents staged a demonstration by burning tyres at Rauspatna and Seminary Chhak. They even tried to gherao the city mayor. They alleged that the Cuttack Municipal Corporation had failed to contain the dengue outbreak.

In another development, the district administration and the municipal corporation today decided to launch a sanitation drive from August 1 to contain the dengue outbreak. Special focus will be on bush-cutting and prevention of accumulation of water near homes, which are the ideal breeding places for the aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread dengue.

The decisions were taken at a district-level task force committee meeting held at the collector’s office. The special drive will continue till August 15. The move to launch the drive comes in the wake of spurt in dengue cases with as many as 121 persons having tested positive so far.

“Adequate stress is being put on sanitation, prevention and treatment keeping in view the dengue outbreak in Cuttack, which has been the epicentre this year. Hence, a special concentrated effort is needed to tackle the situation,” said Cuttack collector Girish S.N.