At 623 and counting, Ghaziabad records second highest dengue tally in nine years

Municipal officials say water-logging, delayed monsoon withdrawal, clusters in high density areas have resulted in an unusually high number of cases

The dengue cases this year in Ghaziabad have refused to ebb, despite the monsoon withdrawing and the temperature dipping, district health officials said, adding that till Tuesday, 623 cases have emerged in the district since August 1, which is the second highest tally in the past nine years.

In view of the rising cases, a dengue ward set up in the Combined District Hospital, Sanjay Nagar, Ghaziabad. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The officials said cases is likely to continue till the temperature dips even more.

“Cases generally cease by Diwali each year but this year the trend has changed and cases are still being reported. To tackle the situation, we are mapping each positive case and clusters have been identified with incoming cases. In all, we have 71 teams for rapid response teams (RRTs) deployed to sensitise and take up anti-larvae activities near houses from where positive cases have emerged,” said Dr Rakesh Kumar Gupta, district surveillance officer.

The district last year recorded 1,238 cases which remain the highest tally since 2014. According to the records kept by the district health department, Ghaziabad registered 226 cases in 2014, 413 in 2015, 621 cases in 2016 with one death, 232 in 2017; 68 in 2018, 88 in 2019, 15 in 2020 and 1,238 in 2021 with one casualty.

Teams of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation are also taking up fogging and anti-larvae activities in each of city’s 100 residential wards.

The municipal officials said water-logging, delayed monsoon withdrawal, clusters appearing in high density areas have resulted in an unusually high number of cases.

According to the health department statistics, the 623 cases reported this year so far include 83 from Sahibabad, 79 from Makanpur (Indirapuram), 63 from Mararajpur in Sahibabad, 67 from Vijay Nagar, 32 from Dasna, 39 from Raj Nagar and 33 from Deen Dayal Puri in Vijay Nagar, among others.

The health department officials said in order to deal with the rising dengue cases, they have already reserved five beds in each of the four block level health centres in Dasna, Muradnagar, Modinagar and Loni while 10 beds each have been reserved at the MMG district hospital and Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital.

They added that five beds each have also been reserved in 40 different private hospitals across the city.

The health department has deployed 21 of its RRTs in rural areas while 50 have been deployed in urban areas.

The health experts said cases will continue to emerge until there is a further dip in temperature.

“The temperature at present is still conducive for the breeding of mosquitoes. Dengue cases generally cease after Diwali.However, the cases are still coming in but the severity is low,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, former president of Indian Medical Association (Ghaziabad chapter).

“This year, the rains continued till before Diwali and mosquito breeding continued due to water-logging. Clusters with a high number of cases were reported from high density areas and so there was spread,” he added.