New Delhi: Municipal Corporation of Delhi confirmed two more dengue deaths in the city on Wednesday, taking the total deaths this year due to the vector-borne disease to five. According to MCD’s Dec 7 report, 273 more dengue cases were reported last week, taking the total count to approximately 6,000 this year.
The latest deaths took place in Sept and Oct, said officials. Once reports are received from hospitals, MCD’s death screening committee takes time to verify and confirm them, said officials. Seven malaria and 13 chikungunya cases were also reported last week. This year has seen a rise in malaria cases due to the long-lasting monsoon, said officials.
“In total, 5,974 dengue cases were reported in Delhi till Dec 7. In comparison, 8,362 dengue cases were reported till this point in 2023, 3,857 in 2022, and 9,260 in 2021,” stated the weekly report on vector-borne diseases compiled by MCD. In the New Delhi Municipal Council area, no new dengue case was reported last week and the total cases are 45 till Dec 7.
Of the new dengue cases, the maximum cases were reported in Shahdara North zone at 63, followed by 34 in Central zone, 31 in Karol Bagh, 25 in Shahdara South, and 21 in Keshavpuram.
In 30 more cases, the patients’ addresses were incomplete or wrong and no patient could be found in 29 others. “Till Dec 7, the address was found to be incomplete or wrong in 2,541 cases and the patient was not found in 691 cases. The figure is less compared to last year when 4,814 cases were found in the ‘wrong address’ category and 1,262 in the ‘patient not found’ category,” stated the report.
MCD reported 239 chikungunya cases till last week. In comparison, 46 cases were reported in 2023, 44 in 2022, 89 in 2021, and 108 in 2020 till this time. “There were 142 cases where the address was incomplete and 35 where the patient was not found till Dec 7,” the report stated.
The total number of malaria cases stands at 773 till Dec 7, which is almost double the number of cases reported in 2023 at 390 cases. In 2022, 241 cases were reported, 167 in 2021 and 224 in 2020.
Last week, the civic bodies issued 1,720 legal notices for mosquito-genic conditions, taking the total number to 1,65,098 from Jan 1 to Dec 9 against 1,70,440 in 2023. The number of prosecutions launched last week was 325, and the total prosecution action taken so far is 54,859 against 73,886 last year.
The number of houses found positive for mosquitoes till Dec 7 was 2,86,422 in comparison to 3,23,358 last year. Domestic breeding checkers have carried out 39,296,367 visits against 39,72,544 last year.
