Dengue cases in Delhi rise to 105 last week, total 348 cases reported so far

Dengue cases continue to rise in the national Capital with Delhi reporting 105 new cases over the last week, the mosquito borne disease report issued by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Monday stated.

The weekly count continues to double over the last three weeks with Delhi reporting 56 cases and 24 cases respectively in the preceding two weekly cycles.

With the addition of 105 new cases, the overall count of dengue cases reported so far this year stands at 348 cases.

The current level of dengue case count is the highest reported in the last six years.

Also Read: Dengue cases in Delhi rise to 56 last week, total 243 cases reported this year

In comparison to the 348 dengue cases reported between January 1 and August 5, 2023, the city had reported 174 cases in the corresponding period in 2022, 55 cases in 2021, 35 in 2020, 47 cases in 2019 and 64 cases in 2018.

The zonal distribution of these 348 cases shows that 191 of these cases have emerged in MCD areas, 32 in NDMC region and 19 cases in Delhi cantonment areas, six under Railways while 110 remained untraced after investigation.

Within the MCD jurisdiction areas, the west zone, south zone and Najafgarh zones have reported the maximum cases.

In 2021, Delhi recorded 9,613 dengue cases and 23 fatalities due to dengue which was the second highest number of case load and deaths due to the disease.

The city witnessed its worst dengue outbreak in 2015 when 15,867 cases and 60 deaths were reported.

The health department of Delhi government had conducted genome sequencing of the dengue virus and found that 19 out of 20 samples were of type 2 dengue, which is considered more dangerous.

There are four dengue virus serotypes (DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4).

Type-2 is considered the most severe.

Doctors suggest prevention is the only alternative in cases of severe dengue.

Dr Sumit Ray, head of the department of critical care medicine and medical director at Holy Family Hospital said healthcare workers only focus on symptomatic treatment.

“Besides leading to low platelets, it can also lead to shock in the patient and capillary leak syndrome. Usually, dengue cases see spike in September-October but due to waterlogging and flooding in the city due to heavy rainfall, more water accumulation sites could have led to increase in the mosquitogenic conditions,” he added.

Dr Ray said that it was important to control the disease through preventive steps at this stage.

While stating that there is no emergency like situation at this stage, the Delhi government last week decided to reserve 5% of beds in government hospitals for dengue patients.

The health ministry has asked the hospitals to create separate dengue wards.

As part of its efforts to check the spread of dengue, the government has increased fines for unchecked mosquito breeding to ₹1,000 for households and ₹5,000 for commercial establishments.