The re­port on the death of Asia Archibald, who suc­cumbed to dengue, was sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Health last week. Chair­man of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) Dr Ashvin Shar­ma con­firmed this yes­ter­day at a pub­lic board meet­ing at The Au­di­to­ri­um, La Joya Com­plex, St Joseph. Ef­forts to con­tact Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan were fu­tile. Shar­ma list­ed the achieve­ments, goals, plans and neg­a­tive find­ings since the board's ap­point­ment in No­vem­ber last year.

Archibald, eight, died in Au­gust from the dead­ly dengue virus. She was dis­charged from the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), but fell se­ri­ous­ly ill hours af­ter. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her death was sub­se­quent­ly launched. While he list­ed plans for next month's sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for two chemo-dial­y­sis cen­tres at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the EWM­SC, Shar­ma al­so not­ed Archibald's death. "We, how­ev­er, have to ac­knowl­edge that we al­so suf­fered the un­time­ly pass­ing of Asia Archibald," he said. "How­ev­er, I can now re­port that the in­de­pen­dent com­mit­tee has re­cent­ly hand­ed in the re­port in­to her death and this was de­liv­ered to the Min­istry of Health last week."