Dengue on the rise in Delhi, over 600 cases since June

Aug 28, 2010, 10:37 GMT

New Delhi - The Indian capital is seeing its worst outbreak of dengue in five years with over 600 cases reported since June, officials said Saturday.

The viral disease is spread through mosquito bites can be life threatening.

Incessant rains and water logging caused by massive construction work as the Commonwealth Games approach had turned the Indian capital into a breeding ground for mosquitos, health practitioners in Delhi said.

Sixty-five new cases of dengue were reported over a 24-hour period ending Friday, taking the total number of people infected by the mosquito-borne disease to 674 this season, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) chief medical officer NK Yadav said.

So far, two people had died of the disease, he said. Dengue is accompanied by high fever, severe headache, muscle and joint pain and rashes. After the fever recedes, the blood platelet count dips and could be fatal.

'The rains have been heavy this year. With so much of Delhi dug up, vector-borne diseases like dengue, malaria, chikungunya will naturally occur,' said Shobha Broor, professor of microbiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The civic authorities have been advertising in newspapers and television to raise public awareness about not letting water collect in their surroundings and on the symptoms of dengue.

Regular fogging to kill mosquitoes is being done in areas where high density of mosquito breeding has been found, MCD spokesperson Deep Mathur said.

A couple of state-run hospitals have been asked to set up special dengue screening centres and wards for dengue patients.

Dengue control measures are also being done at the Commonwealth Games village which will house athletes during the event scheduled between October 3 and 14, Mathur said.

'The actual number of dengue cases could be underreported as the data is collected only from state-run hospitals. Several cases are being admitted to privately-run hospitals across the city every day,' Delhi-based physician SC Sharma said.

'We admit there is a dengue outbreak in the city but the situation is not so serious that it can be termed an epidemic,' the Times of India newspaper quoted Delhi's Health Minister Kiran Walia as saying.

While 67 and four cases of dengue were reported between June and August of 2008 and 2009 respectively, the number of cases in 2010 in the same period was 674.