Corporations say official dengue toll in Delhi now six, over 1,500 cases till October 30

NEW DELHI: The municipal corporations officially declared five dengue deaths in Delhi in the weekly report issued on Monday by SDMC, the nodal civic body for dengue data. The deaths took place between July and September and the total number of dengue casualties is now six.
TOI had reported on Saturday that the various hospitals had reported a total of 13 dengue deaths, with a government official disclosing that six of those dead were residents of Delhi. These included a 35-year-old Sarita Vihar resident who died in a private hospital on September 26; a 9-year-old boy from Rangpuri Pahari who succumbed a day later ; and a 14-year-old boy from Punjabi Bagh West who died on October 23.
SDMC, revealing the data related to dengue, said on Monday that there were 1,537 dengue cases in Delhi till October 30 against 612 in the same period last year and 1,069 in 2019. In the month of October alone, where were 1,196 cases reported compared with 346 cases in October 2020.
The rising cases of the mosquito-borne disease have worried the civic bodies, who claimed to have carried out several measures to check the disease, including transferring employees from other departments to help in the containment drive. Accordingly, 70 drivers in EDMC’s sanitation department had been redeployed to the health department to drive trucks with anti-mosquito insecticide sprayers to visit all residential areas, drains, water bodies and other potential mosquito breeding spots such as riverbanks.
Apart from dengue, six new cases of malaria were also reported last week, taking the total number of malaria patients to 160 against 210 in the same period last year. Eight new cases of chikungunya also came to light last week taking the cases to 81 compared with 86 till this point last year.