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.
