Dengue situation serious with 18 deaths, Chikungnya enters Delhi

New Delhi, Oct 7 (UNI) Describing the dengue situation in Delhi as ''serious but not out of hand'', the Government today admitted that even chikungunya has entred the national capital with three of the 28 suspected cases found to be positive.

About 3331 cases of dengue have been reported from eleven states/ union territories and total 45 people have died of the mosquito borne disease. In Delhi, 825 cases of dengue have been reported while 18 people have died till today, followed by Kerala where 713 cases and four deaths have been reported. In Gujarat, 424 cases of dengue has been reported with three deaths and Rajasthan has reported 326 cases and eight deaths. In West Bengal, there were 314 dengue cases and three deaths while four persons have died of dengue in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka this year, Health Secretary P K Hota said.

''Number of dengue cases have gone up in the past seven days and we want to alert that it is going to get more difficult in coming days till first week of November. Till the temperature goes down, we are vulnerable to the disease,'' he said.

About Chikungunya, he said 13 lakh suspected cases have been reported in 169 districts of ten states. Among these suspected cases 13,568 blood samples were tested and of them, 1533 cases have been found to be positive. So far no deaths have been reported from the disease. In Delhi, 28 suspected cases of the disease were tested of which three were found to be positive. All the afficted came from affected states.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi held a meeting of all the concerned departments, Delhi Government and hospitals to review the dengue situation in the national capital. The meeting, in which the Health Secretary, Chief Secretary of Delhi, representatives of NDMC/MCD and hospitals authorities participated, made a detailed analysis of sitaution at all hospitals and zones.

''Situation in Delhi is serious but not out of hand with hospitals being equipped with bed and patient care facilities and blood/ platelets are available,'' Mr Hota told mediapersons here.

About reports of platlets being not available to some patients, he said that there could be some delay due to a particular blood group not being available at a time but India Red Cross has geared up to make available blood. He appealed to people to come forward and donate blood.

Mr Hota appealed to every householder to become their own 'house constable' and stop using room coolers from today itself to stop tbe breeding of mosquitoes. Both dengue and chikungunya is spread by the same mosquito species and only a collaborative efforts by the government and people could prevent the spread of the disease.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi has challanged about 22000 people, but only households could ensure that no mosquito breeds in their house and neighbourhood, he said. Meanwhile, fogging operations are going and many more machines would be used, he said and asked people to cooperate in this also.

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