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Dengue alarm in Capital

Staff Reporter

10 cases reported on Tuesday

NEW DELHI: Alarm bells have been set off in the Capital with the number of dengue cases rising to 140, with 10 new cases being reported on Tuesday. Over the past fortnight the number of cases has gone up sharply with almost five to 10 of them being reported daily. Of the total dengue cases, 63 were reported this month and 35 during the last week itself.

Of the 140 cases, 102 are from the Capital, while 38 patients have been brought from neighbouring States including Uttar Pradesh and Haryana (13 case each). In Delhi, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) areas are the worst affected with 98 cases, while four cases have been reported from the VVIP-strong New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area.

In the MCD area, West Zone is the worst affected with 28 cases followed by Central (17 cases), Najafgarh (15 cases), Rohini (12 cases) and Karol Bagh (9 cases). However, the number of deaths still remains at four, including three of patients brought from other States.

Experts are worried over the increase in the number of cases and fear that this might go up further as the weather after the recent rain is very conducive for mosquito breeding. They have charged the Delhi Government and the civic agencies with having failed to check the spread of the disease. Significantly, this year the city has seen a steep increase in dengue cases compared to 2004 where only 22 cases were reported from Delhi.

And this is not all. Malaria and cholera are also on the rise as last week over 153 cases of malaria were reported in the Capital -- 58 cases were from Delhi, 68 from Uttar Pradesh, 16 from Haryana and 11 from other States. Similarly, increase in cholera cases have also been reported from different city localities.

Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Yoganand Shastri held a meeting on water and vector borne diseases where he instructed health officials to speed up efforts to check spread of these diseases. The meeting was informed that houses were being inspected for breeding of mosquitoes. Over 89-lakh houses were inspected out of which over 24,000 houses were found positive for breeding and house owners were penalised.

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