A high-level team of experts from the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune arrived in Kerala on Monday to investigate the magnitude of the outbreak of chikungunya which has claimed about 50 lives over the past two months, officials said.
The defence medical teams also stepped up curative and preventive measures, fanning out to more areas in the state while the state health department conducted 54 camps in the worst-hit Pathanamthitta and Kottayam where about 20,000 patients came for consultation.
Army medical teams opened camps, examining patients in the southern districts and assisted the state health authorities in mosquito-control and curative measures. The expert team from Pune, comprising an entomologist, virologist, epidemiologist and microbiologist, visited Alappuzha and would be touring other places in the coming days.