20 new cases of dengue reported on Saturday

With 20 new cases reported from the city on Saturday, the total number of people affected with dengue fever this year has reached 857.

With 20 new cases reported from the city on Saturday, the total number of people affected with dengue fever this year has reached 857.

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Five people, including a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, have succumbed to the disease so far this season, the most recent being a 28-year-old woman who died due to dengue hemorrhagic fever at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on October 14.

Though the authorities had anticipated the dengue figures to cross 800 this year, the number of Chikungunya cases has also gone up. Fifty-seven people have already tested positive for the disease so far this season. Last year, the total number of people infected with the mosquito-borne disease was 33, and most of them had not travelled to south.

“The disease has obviously come to Delhi. There is a need to have an efficient disease-control mechanism in place that we are working on,” said a senior official from the state health department, requesting anonymity.

Another mosquito-borne disease that affects the brain and has killed more than 500 children in Uttar Pradesh, Japanese Encephalitis, was also reported for the first time in the city. Since September 21, when the first person tested positive for the disease, nine more cases have been reported, including two children.