The Capital recorded 131 cases of dengue and six deaths over the past week (till December 25), a civic report said on Monday. This takes the current season’s caseload to 9,545 and the death toll to 23.
According to civic body officials, the six deaths occurred in the months of October and November and the victims were admitted at private and government hospitals. The victims were an eight-month-old boy, a 15-year-old boy, a seven-year-old boy, an eight-year-old girl, a 13-year-old boy and a 10-year-old boy. Till December 18, the death toll for the season stood at 17.
Previously, a senior official from the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which is also the nodal agency for data collection, had confirmed that there were more deaths due to the vector-borne disease which were yet to be declared as the cases were still under investigation.
Low immunity
Responding to the increase in the number of children succumbing to dengue this season, a senior SDMC official said that a major reason was “the low immunity levels of the younger ones”.
“Another factor was the circulation of multiple dengue serotypes which can be fatal. However, it is possible that there will be no new deaths after this point and the cases of dengue have reduced quite significantly,” a senior SDMC official said.
Over the past week, south Delhi recorded 37 cases, followed by north Delhi with 29 and east Delhi with 16. This season, north Delhi recorded the highest number of cases at 2,645, followed by south Delhi with 2,570 cases and east Delhi with 1,129 cases.
Apart from the corporations, New Delhi Municipal Council recorded 84 cases of dengue while Delhi Cantonment and other agencies recorded a total of 167 cases for this season. A total of 2,950 cases remain untraced after investigation.