Yamuna’s floating debris are hotspots for mosquito breeding

NEW DELHI: Covered with a thick coat of green moss and hyacinth, made worse by floating pieces of idols immersed in the waters during Ganesh Visarjan, the banks

NEW DELHI: Covered with a thick coat of green moss and hyacinth, made worse by floating pieces of idols immersed in the waters during Ganesh Visarjan, the banks of Yamuna are intense mosquito-breeding spots, health experts say.

HT Image

Thousands of devotees immersed idols on Wednesday and Thursday. Corporations and Delhi government agencies started cleaning the Yamuna on Friday. But breeding along the riverbanks has worsened as some idols and broken pieces float away and resurface near on the banks, say experts.

“Aedes aegypti, the mosquito which causes dengue, can breed in water as little as five millilitre. Containers, cups and broken idols are ideal for breeding. After the immersion, some idols are not fished out. They surface on the banks. These broken pieces often hold water and breed mosquitoes,” said senior researcher at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, Shalini Ramachandran.

She said no advisory was issued to the public about protecting themselves from mosquito bites near the water body, especially in the wake of the disease taking an epidemic form.

Public awareness and education plays a major role in reducing mosquito breeding, said director of an environmental health programme at Maulana Azad Medical College, Dr TK Joshi.

Environmental degradation, such as unchecked hyacinth formation, contributes to breeding, Joshi said. “Building more hospitals and health care units is not the sole solution... Unless basic cleanliness and civic conditions are maintained, with every passing year, cases and deaths will keep increasing.” Joshi said.

South Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh is an example of how people are falling prey to the heavy mosquito breeding along the Yamuna banks. Twelve-year-old Muskan and 38-year-old Nazish (MLA, Amanatullah Khan’s sister-in-law) are two deaths reported from here.

Civic bodies’ health officials said they held awareness drives in the area before the onset of monsoons. But hyacinth and moss on the banks has contributed to the spike in cases in the neighbourhood, they said.

“The flood and irrigation department is supposed to clear hyacinth and moss. But that has not happened,” said a corporation health official. The department failed to clear the weeds despite many reminders, he said.

The irrigation department refused to comment.