Dengue claims first life in Delhi this season

In the first case of death caused by dengue in Delhi this year, a 22-year-old youth succumbed to the vector-borne disease at a private hospital.

The deceased, a resident of Azadpur in North Delhi and a contractual employee working under North Delhi corporation as a Domestic Breeder Checker, died on September 1 at Max Super Speciality Hospital at Shailmar Bagh here, the hospital authorities said.

Confirming the death, hospital officials said in a statement, “The patient came to us from Tyagi hospital with detected dengue. It was also confirmed with the test done at the hospital that the patient was a confirmed case of dengue.”

‘Zero tally’

However, MCD officials maintained that dengue death tally was ‘zero’.

SDMC Municipal Health Officer N K Yadav said, “Our tally still stands at zero. The deceased was diagnosed through rapid kit test and not ELISA test and, therefore, it is only a suspected Dengue death and not an official figure for us.”

Spurt in cases

From 11 cases in July, the figure for dengue has jumped to 142 in August.

Preventive measures

Meanwhile, civic bodies in the national capital have stepped up measures to check mosquito larval growth in their respective areas after there has been a spurt of dengue cases in the metropolis.

“We are getting maximum number of Dengue cases reported from Rohini and Narela areas in north Delhi. We have already started fogging in Civil Lines Zone and slowly we will cover other areas too,” North Delhi Municipal Corporation public relations officer Yogendra Singh Mann said.

Do’s and don’ts

Giving details of the preventive measures taken by SDMC he said, SDMC has four zones and 104 circles.

“We have two hand-operated fogging machine and one vehicle-mounted in each zone. There are about 900 RWAs here and we have sent letters asking them to follow the do's and don'ts to check mosquito breeding,” he said.

Apart from it, the civic body has instructed its officials to ensure that no water logging takes place in their areas.