Mumbai: Dengue now seems to be spreading more in urban areas rather than the popular belief of rural regions where mosquito breeding sites are more.
Sample this: In September alone, 81 per cent of dengue cases of the total 412 have come from seven wards of the city where there are corporate houses, schools and hospitals. “Major hurdles as well as preventive measures in dengue control is taken care when there is awareness among people. There are times when we have found members of posh societies are found to have lesser awareness than those in slum pockets,” a health official said.
The official said most of these city areas have also under-construction sites and residential sites where mosquito breeding has been detected. However, another senior official said, “The numbers are more city because of the presence of tertiary care hospitals in the area which reports cases from other cities as well.”
Health experts said while the number of infection in children is rising as compared to last year, fogging and intervention strategies have intensified in schools as preventive measures. Out of the 412 cases reported, 335 cases are from F South (Parel), F North (Wadala), G South (Elphinstone), G North (Dadar west), L (Kurla), M East (Govandi), and E (Byculla) wards.
Officials said since four dengue-related paediatric deaths have been reported this year, they have intensified elimination of breeding grounds in schools and hospitals. Since fogging activities aren’t found to be useful for in schools, they have focused on the removal of the breeding sites.
“Fogging works only on an immobile mosquito and hence we are focusing on destroying the breeding grounds. Since Aedes aegypti is active during daytime, we are conducting these activities during day and there have been incidences where we have found the breeding of mosquitoes without any cases being reported,” said Rajan Naringrekar, insecticide officer of BMC.
From September 1 to September 29, 12, a total of 714 chawls and 14 lakh houses were inspected to locate dengue breeding sites. Insecticide department officials have destroyed over 6, 461 breeding sites. Doctors said since there is no specific medication for dengue, people, apart from mosquito prevention, are supposed to consume plenty of liquid and take enough rest in case of a positive diagnosis.
