With winters well and truly settled in Doon valley, the menace of Dengue has finally subsided in the State capital after wreaking havoc for more than four months. This year 1430 people in Dehradun were affected by this disease while three persons lost their lives. The district health department claims that no new case of the disease was reported since November 22 when an Indira colony resident was found positive for the disease.
The district vector borne diseases officer, JP Bahuguna said that the number of samples found positive for the disease have drastically reduced in last 15-20 days. He said that the virus of dengue becomes inactive in winters.
The district health department has reported 1430 cases of the disease in the district this year while the figure last year was 829. In the year 2014, 122 cases of the disease were reported by the district health authorities. Bahuguna claimed that the number of dengue affected people in the city this year is much more than previous years because the department organised large number of camps in different parts of the city and in these camps alone 709 cases of the disease were reported.
Dengue season in Dehradun started a bit early this year with the department reporting first case of the disease on July 13. Thereafter, Patharibagh area of the city came under infestation of the virus as more than 180 cases were reported from this small area within days. The disease later spread to other areas and almost all localities of the city came under its spell. The outbreak of the disease forced the district authorities to undertake an anti dengue drive in State capital which was unprecedented in both scale and number of personnel involved. The fumigation and spray of insecticides was undertaken on a door to door basis but despite all these efforts the number of people affected by the disease continued unabated. The department officially claims that only three deaths due to the disease occurred but those associated with the field admitted that the death toll was much higher and thousands of cases of the disease went unreported by the health department. Interestingly the health department considers only those samples which are found positive in Enzyme linked Immumosorbent Assay (ElISA) test conducted in the labs of associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) and Himalayan hospital Jollygrant, as affected by the disease.
“Thankfully the disease has subsided but it should be noted that the district authorities have no role in this. The cool climatic conditions have deactivated the virus. The health department should take lessons from the failures of this year and should be ready with a plan next year so that menace of disease is curbed,’’ said a senior Government doctor.