What initially appeared to be a subdued impact of the dengue in the national Capital has now catapulted into a sudden spread of the vector-borne disease. In almost a week’s time, 67 cases of dengue have been registered with the Delhi Municipal Corporations. This means that in just this one week, there has been an increase of over 42 per cent in dengue cases.
The latest report issued by the civic bodies on Monday listed 225 as the total number of dengue cases recorded in the national Capital till October 18. The last report, which came a week back, had recorded 158 cases. In these 225 cases, the maximum cases have been recorded in October. A total of 105 cases were recorded in October and there is still ten days to go till the month ends. The number is now likely to go up even more with this alarming rate of increase in dengue cases.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has recorded the maximum cases in the city. A total of 90 cases were recorded from that area. The North DMC recorded 44 cases while East recorded 27 and 34 cases were recorded in the NCR. This year there was a death due to dengue as well. The disease had claimed the life of an eight-year-old boy from Srinagar.
However, the civic bodies have issued a total of 1,07,972 notices to various residences, offices and organisations for being breeding grounds for the Aedes mosquito. According to a recent report released by North DMC, dengue mosquitoes have been found breeding at various institutions this year, including six cases reported at lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital and three at the headquarters of North DMC itself. Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Delhi Technical University and DTC depot are among several institutions in the Capital which have been penalised for failing to check breeding of dengue mosquitoes on their premises.
Other than giving out notices, the civic bodies are taking up measures such as fumigation, checking breeding areas and awareness campaigns across the city.
So far, civic bodies have found 1,53,919 households positive for mosquito breeding and launched 12,477 prosecutions. Delhi had witnessed a large number of dengue cases in 2010, with over 6,200 cases.
In 2009, 1,153 cases were registered, over 1,300 cases in 2008, 1,131 cases in 2011 and 2,093 cases in 2012.