‘Climate change pushes dengue into new frontiers across India’
Dimapur: The lights above washing the hospital corridor with a dim glow, a frantic Jenpu Rongmei rushed to see his 12-year-old nephew Nina who had been admitted the night before with fever and body ache. He was too late.
The young boy had succumbed to dengue, a neglected tropical disease that was entirely alien to the people of Nagaland till very recently.
A month later, Jenpu remembers every detail of that evening, the dull light in the hospital, the faces around, the intense grief and the sheer disbelief that Nina could have gone so soon and so suddenly.
“When I got the news that my nephew was admitted, I thought he would be fine. I didn’t think dengue could be deadly,” Jenpu, who runs the NGO CanYouth to help young people in their education, said.
As the mosquito-borne disease increases its spread, Nina’s untimely death is the latest in the devastating crisis sweeping across the Northeast and other states in India. The spread of the disease even in autumn has been attributed to a late withdrawal of the monsoon, a factor of climate change.
The transmission of dengue is closely associated with three key factors rainfall, humidity and temperature that dictate the geographies in which it spreads and the transmission rate of the viral infection caused by the dengue virus (DENV), and transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes.
The Lancet noted in its global annual countdown on the health impacts of climate change that the number of months suitable for dengue transmission by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes has risen to 5.6 months each year in India. It accounts for a 1.69 per cent annual increase between 1951-1960 and 2012-2021.
According to Dr Niesakho Kire, state programme officer of the National Centre for Vector Borne Disease Control (NCVBDC), the first case of dengue in Nagaland was reported only eight years ago in June 2015. The numbers have been steadily rising since with the state reporting 2,900 confirmed infections this year, the highest so far.
“Climatic change is undoubtedly a significant factor. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and urbanisation provide a fertile ground for Aedes mosquitoes, carriers of the dengue virus, to breed. Dimapur, once a city with moderate temperatures, has now become one of the hotspots. Dengue has seeped into the hilly regions, affecting villages where healthcare facilities are limited,” Kire said.
India currently bears the majority of the global dengue burden, which can be attributed to various factors, including urbanisation, travel, trade, climate change, viral evolution, and the absence of effective vaccines and drug
treatments. According to the data shared by NCVBDC, India recorded nearly 95,000 cases and 91 deaths this year by September 17.
The number was 2,33,251 (2.33 lakh) for last year, with 303 deaths. Experts say the actual numbers are very high and the majority of the cases don’t even get reported.
