Task forces to tackle dengue threat in capital

New Delhi, Oct 3: Waking up to the threat of dengue in the capital, which has witnessed a sharp increase in the number of persons suffering from the disease in recent weeks, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) today announced the setting up of 12 dengue task forces and deployment of fire brigade tankers for outdoor fogging among a host of measures to tackle the deadly virus.

Addressing a press conference here, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the MCD, Jai Kishen Sharma and Leader of the House Jitender Kochar said,''In order to tackle the threat of dengue on a war footing, the health staff of the MCD will, for the next one month devote full time for the dengue control programme.

All the staff have been directed to work on Sundays, also to cover houses which could not be covered during the working days.'' Later, Delhi Mayor Farhad Suri told reporters that in order to accelerate efforts to carry out outdoor fogging in all areas of Delhi, the MCD planned to deploy four fire tankers in the task.

''Also, apart from the 12 vehicles mounted with fogging machines, one of each has been deployed for each MCD zone, we also plan to acquire in the next few days four additional machines on rent. These could be used in areas more prone to dengue,''Mr Suri said.

Mr Suri said that as a step towards tackling the threat of dengue, the MCD also planned to acquire Temphose granules to check mosquito breeding in coolers in the capital.

''With the use of these granules, it is possible to check breeding of mosquitoes for a month. Preventing mosquito breeding in coolers would be a significant step towards tackling dengue as 95 per cent of spreading of dengue is through mosquito breeding in water coolers,''he said.

Besides the above measures, medical superintendents of all hospitals had been directed to notify dengue cases within 24 hours.

Also, the Health department of the MCD has requested the Director, Primary Health Education of the MCD, to give directions to schools to read out instructions for the prevention and control of dengue fever during the prayer session in the schools of the Corporation.

Addressing the reporters, Mr Jaikishen Sharma and Mr Jitender Kochar expressed confidence that the MCD staff would be able to fully bring under control the spread of dengue in the next four to five days. The opposition BJP, however, blamed the lackadeisical approach of the MCD for the spurt in the number of dengue cases this year.

''This is the worst break out of dengue since 1996 when 423 people died due to the disease,''BJP leader and Member of the Standing committee Vijender Gupta and Leader of the Opposition in the MCD Subhash Arya said at a joint press conference here.

Official statistics put forward by the MCD also seem to support the claims of the opposition.

For, as against 10492972 houses visited by the MCD staffers between January 1 and October 1 last year to check mosquito breeding, the corporation officials just checked 85,12068 houses in the same period this year.

MCD officials say 497 Dengue cases have been reported in Delhi till October 1, 280 of them from Delhi.

While 228 cases have been deetcted in the MCD area, nine are in the NDMC area amd three in the Delhi Cannt.

The worst affected by the disease are the Nazafgarh and Karol Bagh zones where 41 cases each have been reported while 26 cases have been reported from Shahdara (North) and 25 each from Shahdara (South) and West zones.

So far 11 people have lost their lives to dengue, caused by Addes mosquitoes which breeds in unhygienic conditions.

Unconfirmed reports, however, put the number of dengue cases in Delhi at 1,000.

In fact, Mr Gupta, talking to reporters, alleegd that almost ten new cases were being detected in the Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi daily for the last seven to eight days.

Mr Gupta said he had written a letter to the Mayor raising several question about the MCD's state of preparedness to tackle the dengue virus.

''The Mayor has asked for time till tomorrow to reply to our queries. It is only after receiving his reply that we will decide our course of action,''he said.

While demanding the resignation of the Congress leaders from their posts, Mr Gupta and Mr Arya called for convening a special session of the MCD house to discuss various aspects relating to spread of dengue.

UNI