At least 79 fresh cases of malaria were reported last week, taking the number of people affected by the vector-borne disease in the city this year to 304. The total number of dengue cases has also risen to 237 in which 63 cases were reported last month.
Chikungunya cases stand at 220 till July 29, of these 140 of the affected people were residents of Delhi while the rest of the cases were traced from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other States. According to the status report of municipal Corporations released on Monday, out the 304 malaria cases, 137 affected people were residents of Delhi while the rest of the cases diagnosed here were from other States.
Intensifying its efforts to keep the menace under check, all the three municipal corporations have stepped up awareness drive, including through distribution of pamphlets and playing of vehicles carrying loudspeakers, issuing dos and don'ts on prevention of vector-borne diseases.
The season for the vector-borne diseases kicked in mid- July and it generally lasts till November-end.
Cases of all the three vector-borne diseases were reported much earlier this time, which doctors had attributed to the early arrival of monsoon. Breeding of mosquitoes has been reported at 80,411 households in Delhi, according to the report.
Dengue and chikungunya are caused by the bite of Aedes agypti mosquito, which breeds in clean water, while anopheles mosquito, which causes malaria, can breed in both fresh and muddy water.
Till January 14, only two chikungunya cases were reported, while no dengue case had been diagnosed till then. At least 15 fatalities were reported last year at various hospitals in the city due to complications triggered by chikungunya though the civic bodies have kept the death tally at zero.
At least 21 deaths due to dengue were reported last year at various hospitals, including nine at AIIMS, though the official tally of the SDMC stood at 10. Seventeen suspected deaths in 2016 due to malaria were also reported by the civic bodies. In one of the worst outbreaks, a total of 12,221 chikungunya cases were reported in Delhi till December 24, 2016, out of which 9,749 were confirmed.