This Article is From Aug 07, 2015

Delhi Under Dengue Threat After 10-Year-Old's Death

The municipal corporation has started fumigation and even door to door awareness campaigns.

New Delhi: A 10-year-old girl is suspected to have died from dengue earlier this week in Delhi, underscoring the looming mosquito menace on the capital.

Officials from the municipal corporation are awaiting the blood test results to confirm the cause even as they have more pressing symptoms to tackle. The number of dengue cases has more than doubled from last year, jumping from 22 cases till the end of July 2014 to 53 cases till the end of July this year.

Prasad Kumar, 26, was one such patient. Staying at the Bhanwar Singh camp in South Delhi, he has returned home from hospital just two days ago. "I had very high fever, terrible body ache. When I went to the hospital, the blood test said it was dengue. It will take me a week or so to fully recover," he said.

His neighbour, Prashanto, has just been admitted to a nearby government hospital with similar symptoms.

Not far from their locality, at the IIT Delhi campus, 21-year-old Shreya Soni recalls how tough it was to recover. "The day I went to the doctor, there were at least 10 other students from my institute in the same room with dengue symptoms," she says. "There are open drains, where you can literally see hundreds of mosquitoes."

After a surge in such cases, the municipal corporation has started fumigation and even door to door awareness campaigns. Municipal Health Officer Dr N K Yadav says, "It's been raining every few days and that's why water is stagnating at places. We have sent our teams, area-wise, to check for stagnant water and breeding sites of mosquitoes. Every week we are coming across at least 15 breeding sites. Warnings have been given and people have even been fined."
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