Chikungunya is taking its toll in the national capital where the number of cases have climbed to over 1,000 this season and fever clinics are getting swamped with rush of patients.
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Meanwhile, AIIMS laboratories have tested 1,443 chikungunya blood test samples positive till September 13.
The Health Minister assured that there is no shortage of drugs and testing facilities to counter this recent upsurge.
Municipal Corporation data puts the number of dengue, chikungunya and malaria infections at 1,158, 1,057 and 21 respectively. A municipal report says that in September alone, 387 cases were reported marking a rise of over 50 per cent from the previous count of 770 till September 3.
Prakash said that some might argue that this difference is actually due to under-reporting of cases in those districts.
“We never saw any reports in the media till now”, he said, adding that the civic bodies had been told to share with the Delhi government details of the fogging done so far.
“I met Nadda ji yesterday and he heard my request, where all Centre-run hospitals like AIIMS and RML reserve at least 10 per cent beds for fever-related cases”. It not only failed to spend money allocated to it to take preventive measures to deal with vector-borne deceases like Dengue and Chikungunya, the money shown spent has also been embezzled and has not been spent on preventive measures.
“Delhi was never a priority for AAP”, Mr Upadhyay said. But still, we have sought a detailed report from Delhi government. Since January 2016, there have been 17 review meetings (including three video conferences with States). “The second was addressed by the Secretary and the third was done by heads of vector borne diseases”, he said.
Delhi ruled MCDs have proved once again that the BJP does not care about people and their problems. “No one should panic, may it be chikungunya or dengue”. “There’s so much construction happening around the city, so much debris and digging, and the pools of water that form at such construction sites are flawless breeding-grounds for mosquitoes”. He said the government had cancelled the leave of all government hospital staff.
He, however, clarified that Delhi government has not refused any patient coming from neighbouring states for admission at its hospitals. He was the fifth person to have lost his life to complications triggered by chikungunya, at the hospital in the last five days.
Jain also praised doctors in Delhi government hospitals and said that many beds were vacant at many government hospitals even now. Most of the victims were old people, and had some sort of medical history, he said.
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It is important that information from private hospitals is captured and well-represented for better estimation.
