Nearly 35% of dengue cases detected last week in Delhi ‘untraced’

Delhi municipal corporations’ weekly report regarding vector-borne diseases showed that 184 of 531, or 34.65%, dengue cases detected last week were “untraced”.

The comparative statement of dengue cases in Delhi for the week ending October 30, issued by the anti-malaria operations (headquarters) at South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), said that the hospitals did not have addresses/contacts for at least 100 dengue patients in the city. The eighty-four other patients who could not be traced were not hospitalised and had not provided their addresses/contacts to the labs testing their blood samples either.

“While doing a follow-up of the infected patients, we find that many of the mobile numbers or the addresses provided by patients at the time of pathological tests are false. If we can’t reach them on these addresses or numbers during investigation, we declare these patients ‘untraced’,” Dr BK Hazarika, medical health officer, SDMC, said.

Additionally, the report said 418 of these cases were “acquired infections from other states”.

Explaining what acquired infections are, Dr Hazarika said, “Prima facie, we classify patients as Delhi and non-Delhi residents to identify who was infected with dengue here and who got infected from other states.” After investigation, those found to have been infected in other states are classified as “acquired infections”, he added.

He also said that the municipal health staff regularly conducts awareness drives about the steps to be taken to prevent the breeding of malaria (Anopheles) and dengue (Aedes aegypti) mosquitoes. “To control the spreading of mosquito-borne diseases, domestic breeding checkers have arranged 23 million house visits till October 30 this year. They have sprayed insecticides at 2.8 million houses this year”.

The report also said that 1,537 dengue cases were reported in Delhi till October 30. Delhi had reported 1,069 cases in 2019 and 612 in 2020. “Of the 531 cases detected last week, the maximum number of cases--134-- was detected in the areas under the jurisdiction of North Delhi Municipal Corporation, followed by 127 and 69 in areas under the jurisdiction of the south and east municipal bodies, respectively. Eight cases were detected in areas under the jurisdiction of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), five cases were detected in the Delhi cantonment, and four cases were detected in areas under the jurisdiction of the railways,” it stated.

When contacted, Mukesh Suryan, the mayor of the SDMC – the nodal agency that releases the data of vector-borne diseases, said that no death due to dengue has taken place in either of the two hospitals, i.e. Purnima Sethi and Tilak Nagar. “We are doing the best to tackle this disease by repeated fogging and awareness drives in different wards. But, the onus of all six deaths recorded in Delhi so far this year lies on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-ruled Delhi government. Despite a huge surge in dengue cases this year, we don’t have any funds to tackle this situation. Even if the dengue victims were not Delhi residents, it was the responsibility of the state government to save their lives,” he said.

Refuting Suryan’s allegations, Prem Chouhan, the leader of the Opposition in SDMC, said that it’s the responsibility of the municipal bodies, to control the vector-borne diseases in their areas. “But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled municipal bodies want to hide all their failures, blaming the Kejriwal government. Neither do they want to perform, nor do they let others perform. Forget about government, every worker of our party is ensuring repeated fogging in all critical areas,” he said.

Abhishek Dutt, the Congress leader and Andrews Ganj councillor, accused both BJP and AAP of the failure in tackling the spread of dengue in Delhi. “The fact is that neither of these parties can turn their back on their responsibilities. Instead of diverting the attention of the people with their catfight, they must perform at the ground level for the people’s suffering,” he said.

He also alleged that the civic bodies are trying to “control” the number of dengue cases by “leaving cases untraced”.

“Is it possible to have untraced cases in a world where everything is driven by technology? Both AAP and BJP are trying to hoodwink people with their blame game... instead of providing proper healthcare facilities,” he said.