JOIN USChikungunya menace continues unabated in city
The chikungunya menace continues unabated with the city seeing over 1,000 cases each for the past two weeks.
There has been a sharp increase of nearly 1,600 more chikungunya cases in the past one week across the city, said a weekly municipal report on Monday. A week prior to that saw 1,070 chikungunya cases in Delhi.
So far vector-borne diseases have claimed 40 lives in Delhi this season – 18 people have died of chikungunya, 17 people have succumbed to dengue, and malaria has claimed five lives. But the latest report compiled by the nodal agency, South Delhi Municipal Corporation, only mentions four deaths due to dengue.
The Supreme Court on Monday slapped Rs 25,000 cost on Delhi's Health Minister Satyendar Jain for seeking time to furnish an affidavit—giving names of the officers – who did not cooperate with the AAP government in taking steps to check Dengue and Chikangunya deaths here.
According to the municipal report, as many as 6,667 cases of chikungunya have been reported in the city till October 1. Of these, the total number of confirmed cases standS at 5,293. As many as 4,649 cases of chikungunya were reported in the city till September 24. Of these, the total number of confirmed cases stood at 3,695.
“There has been an increase of 1,598 cases in the past week,” said an official.
In 2015, only 64 cases of chikungunya were reported in the city.
The total number of 2,133 cases of dengue has been reported in the city till October 1. In all, 29 cases of malaria have surfaced so far this season.
The Centre's Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme had collated 2,926 dengue cases till September 13.
The Aam Aadmi Party government has launched a special fogging drive since September 22 to check the breeding of mosquitoes. The drive will continue till October end.
But the opposition parties have slammed the Kejriwal government for its lack of preparedness to tackle the vector borne diseases this season. The AAP government, however, tried to shift the blame to the BJP-ruled municipal corporation saying that sanitation is an obligatory function of the civic agencies.
Last year, the city saw the highest number of dengue cases in 20 years with 15,867 such cases being reported in 2015. As many as 60 people died due to the vector-borne disease last year.
The menace of dengue started as early as March this year when two cases of the vector-borne disease were reported.
In July, a girl from Jafrabad in north-east Delhi died due to dengue at LNJP Hospital. The second victim of the vector-borne disease was reported to be Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan's sister-in-law, who died in August.