Vector-borne diseases have maintained an upward trend despite civic and Government agencies claiming to have taken preventive measures. There has been a significant increase in the number of patients thronging various city hospitals for the treatment of dengue, chikungunya and malaria. The number of malaria cases have shot up alarmingly to 134, of which 41 cases were detected in the previous month. Of the 125 people suffering from malaria, 63 belonged to Delhi, while 62 of the cases diagnosed in Delhi were traced to other States.
Apart from malaria threatening to escalate in Delhi, dengue cases have also shown an upward trend as it has reached close to 100 in which 55 cases have been detected in Delhi while 44 were reported from other States.
The number of chikungunya cases recorded in the city stood at 153 till Monday. Of these, 108 cases have been reported in Delhi while 44 cases were detected from other States, as per the data released by the Municipal Corporations on Monday. Out of the 153 cases of chikungunya, 12 were recorded in June, even as authorities have taken a number of initiatives to combat its possible outbreak.
However, a senior South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) official said a full-fledged awareness drive through distribution of pamphlets and plying of vehicles carrying loudspeakers, announcing dos and don’ts, has been launched for prevention of vector-borne diseases. “SDMC has examined 32,230 blood slides, sprayed 2,00,795 houses and its domestic breeding checker employees visited house to house for almost 1,84,98,354 times for checking breeding of mosquitoes. Breeding was found in 42824 houses and legal notices were issued in 46,184 cases whereas prosecution initiated in 3987 cases,” he said.
While North Corporation, in order to prevent such diseases, has already initiated an awareness programme and put up over 100 huge hoardings illustrating the dos and don’ts. We are in the process to speed up the awareness programme in an aggressive way. “All the necessary pieces of information are provided on the posters including a toll free number along with numbers of control room and the officials concerned. Most importantly, a feature has been introduced on our website to register complaints,” a senior official said.
Though the season of vector-borne diseases had ended in December, the city continues to report such cases, prompting authorities to prepare a roadmap for the combat plan. The season for the vector-borne diseases begins from mid-July and generally lasts until November.
Six cases of dengue were reported in January, four in February, 11 in March and as many in April of this year. It may be recalled that 4,431 cases of dengue were reported till the end of 2016. 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 outbreak, a total of 12,221 chikungunya cases were reported in Delhi till December 24, 2016, out of which 9,749 were confirmed, according to the data provided by all the three municipal corporations.