Malda:
The infant death toll during the last seven days has risen to 21 with five more new-borns dying today in the government-run Malda Sadar Hospital here, according to acting superintendent of the hospital M A Rashid.
He said the cause of the death of the five new born babies, in the last 24 hours, was under-weight births and breathing problems.
"We are trying our best to tackle the problem but we have a weak infrastructure here. However, we are trying to address all these issues," said Rashid.
Earlier, the hospital had reported death of 26 babies in a period of six days from November 11.
Reports of crib deaths have been coming from various parts of the state recently. While 23 babies died in 10 days since December 15 in Suri Sadar Hospital, 12 children died on October 28 in Burdwan Hospital. Another 18 infants died at B C Roy Memorial Hospital for Children in Kolkata.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, also in-charge of the health department, had named a high-level task force to look into the rising infant death cases in state-run hospitals.
The task force had found that the Malda hospital lacks adequate number of doctors and health workers, while the hygiene levels were also low.