A report released by the municipal corporations of Delhi on Monday, 15 November, showed that dengue cases have almost doubled in the national capital, reaching 5,277 with 2,570 fresh cases being added in the past week, news agency PTI reported.
This is now the national capital's highest number of cases since the dengue outbreak of 2015 which affected 16,000 people and killed 60, according to Hindustan Times.
No new deaths were added to the toll, which currently stands at nine, the highest death toll recorded in a year in Delhi since 2017, when 10 deaths were reported.
Since this year's dengue outbreak in Delhi, the first 13 days of November has seen 3,740 cases being reported, while 1,196 cases were reported in October.
According to PTI, the report said that in 2016, 4,431 cases were logged while 4,726 cases were seen in 2017, 2,798 in 2018, 2,036 in the year 2019 and 1,072 last year.
On 30 October, the Delhi government had issued an order directing all hospitals in the capital to use one-third of the beds reserved for COVID patients to treat patients of dengue, malaria and chikungunya.
“It is observed that the number of cases of Dengue/Malaria/Chikungunya are on a rise, with increasing demand of beds for these patients. Further many of the beds reserved for COVID cases are lying vacant due to the decline in number of COVID cases,” the order read
Dengue viruses spread to people through the bites of female mosquitoes, mainly belonging to the species Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The carrier mosquitos breed in stagnant water.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times and PTI.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)