The Hindu              04.10.2013

Over 2,500 dengue cases in Delhi this year

The number of dengue cases in the national Capital has seen an exponential rise. According to figures released by the Delhi civic bodies, of the total 2,557 cases reported this year, over 400 new dengue cases have been reported in the past three days.

Till September 30, the civic bodies had declared 2,124 dengue cases.

Official figures put the number of confirmed deaths at three, with the latest being a six-year-old girl from Okhla in South Delhi. She succumbed to the mosquito-borne disease on September 23 at Safdarjung Hospital.

Importantly 1,200 cases, slightly less than the half of the total, have been reported from the North Delhi Municipal Corporation area. With 653 cases, the South Delhi civic body comes next, followed by the East Delhi civic body with 585 cases. Sixty-nine cases have come to light in regions outside the jurisdiction of the MCD.

When asked why North Delhi was seeing the highest number of cases, NDMC officials said other civic bodies were not releasing the correct figures for their areas.

“People are asking us why almost half of the total number has been reported from NDMC. The reality is that other corporations do not seem to be truthful about the actual number. Hospitals in others civic bodies are reporting huge number of dengue cases but, we don’t get to see that in official figures,” an NDMC official said.

‘More deaths likely’

While the official number of deaths caused by dengue is three, the actual number is suspected to be much higher.

Recently, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit blamed the dengue spurt on the “callousness” of the BJP-led civic body. She had criticised the three Municipal Corporations for not being able to fulfil their basic responsibility of providing sanitation services and controlling the breeding of mosquitoes.

The Capital had seen 3,531 cases of dengue in 2010.

The official figure for 2011 is 275, while civic body officials said the number of dengue patients last year was just 95.

The three municipal corporations on Wednesday launched a sanitation-cum-cleanliness drive in their respective zones to maintain a healthy environment and to combat dengue.

Municipal officials blamed the long spell of rain as one of the reasons for the increasing number of dengue cases.

“We are doing everything to check the spread of the mosquito-borne disease. We have increased the efforts to an almost war footing. We have increased the number and frequency of domestic breeder checkers (DBCs) to do the rounds in the affected areas. But, at times, people make their job difficult by not allowing them to enter their homes,” said a senior South Delhi civic body official.

The Health Ministry had recently asked the three municipal corporations to check overhead tanks for breeding of dengue mosquitoes.