Dengue toll in India 101, cases continue to mount

New Delhi -- India continued Monday to be in the grip of mosquito-borne dengue with nearly 5,500 confirmed cases while the death toll mounted to 101.

The national capital continued to be the worst affected with 32 people succumbing to the disease since September while the number of the affected people rose to 1,548 with the addition of 83 new cases Monday.

Manoj Kumar, 22-year-old youth from Aligarh of Uttar Pradesh, was brought to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here Sunday evening. Doctors said he died of internal haemorrhage in the early hours Monday.

"He was brought in a very critical condition and his blood platelet count had dipped sharply," said D.K. Sharma, the hospital's medical superintendent.

Dengue is caused by a virus spread by the female Aedes Aegypti mosquito that breeds in stagnant water. It is marked by high fever, skin rashes and joint pain. A sharp drop in the patient's blood platelet count can prove fatal.

The disease has taken alarming proportions since the first week of September when the first deaths were reported.

As the post-monsoon period of September to October each year is known to be favourable months for the breeding of the mosquito, experts continue to hope for a reprieve from the disease soon.

"The continued deaths are worrisome. We had called for an urgent meeting of civic authorities and medical services to discuss the situation," said Delhi's Health Secretary D.S. Negi.

He added that all the 53 blood banks in the capital were asked to be on alert so that dengue patients' immediate requirements could be met and civic authorities were asked to carry out fogging and fumigation work to control the breeding of mosquitoes.

Out of the cases reported in the Delhi hospitals, 982 cases were from the capital itself while 566 cases from areas bordering it.

Health officials said that the worst affected states near Delhi were Haryana (173 cases), Uttar Pradesh (303) and Rajasthan (14).

At AIIMS, the country's leading public hospital that has been treating the largest number of dengue patients, 27 more of them were admitted Monday, taking the total number of the confirmed cases in the hospital to 176.

"Around 200 suspected cases are under observation in the hospital," said Sharma. "Everyday we are getting a similar number of suspected cases who are kept under observation in the specially made dengue wards," he added.

The dengue situation in other states remained equally grim.

Kerala continued to be the worst affected state outside Delhi with 794 cases, followed by Rajasthan (697), Gujarat (443), West Bengal (429), Uttar Pradesh (418), Tamil Nadu (307), Punjab (250), Maharashtra (240), Haryana (167), Karnataka (90) and Andhra Pradesh (35).

The country was also battling chikungunya fever, whose virus is spread by the same type of mosquito. The number of chikungunya patients across India rose to 1,625, with 24 cases reported from Delhi.

The maximum number of confirmed chikungunya cases were reported in Maharashtra (679), followed by Karnataka (294), Andhra Pradesh (248), Gujarat (145), Tamil Nadu (111), Madhya Pradesh (62), Kerala (38) and Pondicherry (9).