Government sleeps as dengue menace spreads

If you are scared of the 766 confirmed cases of dengue within a week, you are in for a surprise. The figure does not even come close to telling you how serious the menace is. 

Reason? This is just the sum total of the online data provided by 33 government hospitals which are marked as ‘sentinel hospitals’ to report dengue in the city on a regular basis and some private hospitals which voluntarily report their registered dengue cases. 

Out of these 33 hospitals, six are run by the three municipal corporations and rest by Delhi and central governments.

‘The main reason behind the high number of dengue cases in our area is that almost all the 19 hospitals here are reporting the disease, sometimes even before confirmation test, while over 10 sentinel hospitals in South DMC area were not reporting the dengue cases till recently,’ says Mayank Sharma, additional commissioner (health) of North DMC. 

As per the report of the ‘nodal agency for dengue cases’, 2,092 were reported from Delhi so far, out of which 1,856 dengue cases were reported from these 33 sentinel hospitals and 236 dengue cases were voluntarily submitted by some private and government hospitals as well as private clinics in the city.

‘Dengue is a much more serious concern in Delhi than is being reported by the ‘nodal agency’ as most of the patients go to nearby private clinics, private and government hospitals, which don’t furnish details to us,’ says Mukesh Goel, leader of opposition in North DMC. However, as per the report released by the nodal agency on Monday, 769 cases were confirmed in the last week of September, out of which only three were from neighbouring states. 

Out of these 769 cases, North DMC has 363, while East DMC has 230. So far, the city has registered three deaths and 2,092 

confirmed dengue cases this year, out of which 1,026 are from North DMC, 540 from South DMC, 435 from East DMC and 52 from NDMC areas.

In 2011, the nodal agency had decided to get data on dengue from 596 major hospitals which included all government and private hospitals, polyclinics, and major private clinics. However, the project is still gathering dust. 

‘We are fighting with the diseases without any financial help from Delhi and central governments. We had diverted our funds from development heads to fight the menace,’ says Azad Singh, mayor, North DMC. He added that the corporation had demanded Rs 250 crore for sanitation, but Delhi government approved only Rs 100 crore and, in fact, has released only Rs 25 crore so far for 2013-14. 

‘We have pending liability of Rs 80 crore to sanitation concessionaires.  The Congress government is playing politics over this issue and wrongly blames the corporations,’ he added. 

The mayors of the other two corporations also voiced their concern over non-payment of allocated fund to them. ‘We are doing our best, including regular fogging, sanitation, spray and awareness campaigns through various media despite our limited resources, but the Delhi government hardly expends funds on awareness campaigns against dengue,’ says Rajesh Gehlot, chairman of standing committee in South DMC.