The death toll due to dengue has risen to 14, with nine new cases reported by AIIMS on Thursday.
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Bilkulonline.com, New Delhi, Sep 15: The outbreak of chikungunya-dengue in Delhi must be dealt with on a war-footing as the disease taking epidemic proportion is expected to result in a loss to the tourism and aviation industries, an Assocham assessment said on Thursday. And, this couldmean the number of cases in Delhi could be much higher thancurrently reported”, he said.Arun R Kaushik, specialist in microbiology andgeriatrics, says, “Chikungunya virus is transmitted by thebite of aedes albopictus and aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
According to hospitals, the patients were also suffering from diabetes and kidney ailments.
“People of Delhi have no need to panic”.
Rai says, “At Safdarjung, 536 chikungunya cases have been confirmed”.
The vector-borne disease had claimed its first victim on July 21 when a girl from Jafrabad in northeast Delhi died at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital.
Health experts have said there are more chances for the elderly to succumb to chikungunya due to their low immunity levels.
Ganga Ram Hospital has so far reported five deaths due to chikungunya. Though chikungunya cannot kill someone it can trigger the problems of an old chronic disease.
A senior doctor at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital says the viral strain in patients diagnosed with chikungunya at its hospital are “showing different behaviour” for the two tests. There has been a thirteen times increase in the last year, Pune has recorded over 92% of the state’s Chikungunya case this year.
On Monday, the premier institute had said that it was looking into the details of these “five suspected cases”.
There was only one person for every five lakh population, who sprayed pesticides on a bicycle.
The last dengue fatality reported was of Iram Khan (25), a native of Meerut, who lived in Jamia Nagar in south Delhi, who succumbed to dengue on August 31 at Apollo Hospital.
Chikungunya -related deaths in government and private city hospitals add up to 12.
Several calls to state Health Minister Sashi Panja, health secretary and DHS over this figure went unanswered.
“Similarly, the United States embassy in New Delhi also issued health advisory for their tourists visiting India, saying on their website that outbreaks of mosquito-borne viral diseases such as dengue and chikungunya occur in various parts of India each year”.
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The comments follow reports that 10 people have died in Delhi due to chikungunya, which has affected tens of thousands across the city. Over 770 cases were reported till September 3 this season.
