The city zone of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) held an inter-sectoral meeting on Tuesday to discuss preparedness to tackle vector-borne diseases.
A senior NMC official said the meeting was attended by all its district health officers and hundreds of officials from other departments of the Delhi Government.
He also said the flood and irrigation department were told to remove Hyacinth from Yamuna River which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Further, hospitals under NMC also advised to arrange extra beds to tackle the cases efficiently.
"It was stressed that community participation is important to control the menace of vector- borne diseases as it the disease caused by Aedes mosquitoes which breeds in stagnant and clean water, the official informed.
The total numbers of dengue cases have already reached at 26 this year. On the other hand, the total number of people affected by malaria stood at seven while that of chikungunya at10.
Domestic breeding of mosquitoes is one of the main factors responsible for people contracting these vector-borne diseases. Water coolers, storage utensils, bird and dog-feeders left in the rain, are known to be typical places where Aedes mosquito breeds. Most of the breeding detected in these waste products left in open by our 'Dengue Breeding Checkers', said Pramod Verma, District Health Officer of City Zone (NMC).
“We have been appealing to people through our campaign to not allow stagnation of water in coolers or dog-feeders, which become a hot breeding ground for Aedes mosquitoes,” he said.
Breeding of mosquitoes has been reported in nearly 6,493 households in the national capital this year till April 25, according to the civic bodies, which are grappling with rising number of cases of the vector-borne diseases. Among the areas falling under the three municipal corporations, the cases of breeding reported from all the three corporations are- NMC (1,685), SDMC (4,130) and EDMC (437).
Also, 7,346 legal notices have been issued to various people and establishments after mosquitogenic conditions were found in their houses or premises. At least 167 prosecutions have also been launched after breeding was found, the report said.
The total number of the people affected by dengue was 9,271 in 2017 and the numbers of malaria and chikungunya cases in 2017 stood at 1,142 and 940 respectively.