With September — the most conducive month for the breeding of mosquito — over, now Delhiites can heave a sigh of relief. And the reasons are that cases of dengue, chikungunya and viral fever — according to doctors — have declined by 50 per cent in the Outdoor Patients Departments (OPDs) of hospitals across the national Capital in the last one week.
Dr Rommel Tickoo, who heads the Internal Medicine department at Max Hospital Saket, told The Pioneer the dipping temperature in the coming days will make it unfavourable for mosquitoes to breed.
He said as the disease (chikungunya) reoccurred after a gap of 10 years, patients were panicked and rushed to hospitals over complications.
Dr Atul Kakar, head of department of Internal Medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, "Definitely, occurences of vector-borne diseases have started to reduce and the scary time is over. Fever cases are still coming up, but there are less reports of dengue and chikungunya cases.”
The latest figures released by the civic agencies on Monday, showed 2,100 dengue cases, which at the same time last year was recorded as 6,775 cases reported in September alone.
A municipal report released on Monday said at least 2,133 dengue cases have been recorded till October 1. Of this, 1,362 were reported last month and 441 last week.
Meanwhile, Dr SK Sharma, HOD of Internal Medicine at AIIMS said, “In the coming days, viral cases too will witness a decrease.”
Dr Damanjit Chaddha, Director of Internal Medicine at Fortis Hospital (Vasant Kunj) said, “There is no rush in the OPD. But at the same time, we have to be cautious as cases of co-infection with patients being diagnosed with dengue, malaria and chikungunya is also being noted this time around."
This year, 6,667 chikungunya cases were reported across the city, said a municipal report. The chikungunya virus of African genotype circulating this year has claimed 15 lives so far. On the other hand, dengue claimed 21 lives.
AIIMS in a report released on September 15 had said among the dengue and chikungunya patients visiting the institute, 70 per cent belonged to Uttar Pradesh, 10 per cent to Bihar and the rest to Delhi.
In 2015, the city saw a staggering 15,867 dengue cases - the worst in the last 20 years - with the disease claiming 60 lives, as per municipal reports.
In 1996, a severe outbreak of dengue had occurred in Delhi when about 10,252 cases and 423 deaths were reported, prompting the authorities to declare it a notifiable disease.