Dengue is talking a firm grip on the population of the provisional State capital.
On Monday 41 new cases of Dengue were reported in the provisional State capital taking the number of people affected by the disease to 159 this season. The surfacing of such a large number of cases of dengue in a day is an indication that the disease is on an upswing.
This situation when seen in context of onslaught of Swine flu in Dehradun has emerged as a serious health problem for the residents of the city. The unseasonal Swine Flu cases has so far affected 164 people in the state capital and taken lives of 20 patients.
The District in-charge of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), Dr Puneet Chandra said 159 cases have been so far been reported positive for the dengue this year, out of which 75 are from Dehradun district, 61 are from Haridwar district, two from Tehri, one Chamoli and Rudraprayag.
The department has collected samples of 3727 patients this year out of which 159 patients have been found positive in Enzyme linked Immunosorbent Assay (ElISA) which is the confirmatory test for the disease. Incidentally as many as 124 cases of dengue have been reported in the month of September alone till date.
This spurt in number of dengue cases is being linked with the strike of Asha workers.
The health department had reported as many as 1434 cases of Dengue last year after collecting samples of 41325 suspected patients. large numbers of patients were reported from lakhibagh area of the city. Incidentally the number of dengue cases witnessed a sharp increase last year from 829 cases reported in the year 2015.
Dengue is spread by Aedes Aezypti or tiger mosquito. It has characteristic stripes on its body due which it is called tiger mosquito. It strikes during day time and experts suggest that people should wear full sleeved clothes to prevent mosquito bite.