708 fresh cases of dengue reported in a week: SDMC

New Delhi: As many as 708 fresh cases of dengue have been reported in a week period till november 10 in Delhi, taking the total number of people diagnosed with the vector-borne disease this season to 2,579, a municipal report released on Monday said. As many as 42 fresh cases of Malaria and 11 cases of Chikungunya have been reported this week, taking the total number to 869 and 341 respectively this year.

The report also suggested that 280 of the fresh cases belonged to Delhi while 339 cases belonged to the neighbouring states and 89 remained untraced after investigation. With this, the total number of vector-borne cases in November has crossed 1,000 mark. Also, the total number this year has risen to 4,913 out of which 1,875 belonged to Delhi while 2,528 belonged to neighbouring states and 509 remained untraced after investigation. The data includes one death reported in Wazirabad.

According to the report, the corporation has sprayed around 25, 29,108 houses. Around 2,25,593 places were found positive for mosquito breeding out of which 1, 80,321 places were given legal notices.

The prosecution has been launched in 25,570 cases, so far. With more than 10,000, most of the prosecutions were launched in areas coming under SDMC.

In North civic body, only 6,588 prosecutions were launched and in the East civic body, around 8,000 prosecutions were launched.

Meanwhile, taking precautionary measures, all the three corporations have already started a number of initiatives to prevent mosquito breeding, including creating awareness by using various media, deploying more dengue breeding checkers, and desilting of drains, the official said.

Concerned over increasing numbers of vector-borne diseases at the beginning of this year, South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) Commissioner Dr PK Goel had issued an advisory on prevention and control of vector-borne diseases in Delhi.

Goel has called for prevention of mosquito breeding by source and made it clear that the reduction is the only effective tool for prevention and control of these diseases.

Last year, the number of dengue cases recorded in the national capital was as high as 8,063 including 4,188 of Delhi and 3,875 of other states, the report stated.

The numbers of malaria and chikungunya cases recorded in 2017 stood at 1,106 and 855 respectively.

Dengue and chikungunya are caused by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which breeds in clean water. The female Anopheles mosquito, which causes malaria, breeds in both clean and muddy water.