Dengue-chikungunya cases cross 160, govt unhappy with Gzb admin

Ghaziabad: The city has seen a rise in vector-borne diseases, with official figures on Friday confirming 80 dengue and 82 chikungunya cases.

Also on Friday, state health minister Ravidas Mehrotra met chief medical officers of 10 districts, including Ghaziabad, in Lucknow and issued directions for containing the outbreak, while expressing his disappointment with the way the health department has handled it so far.

Additional chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Agarwal, who had attended the meeting tod TOI on Saturday, “A number of issues were discussed in the meeting including the rise in victor-borne diseases and we were directed to keep a check on the diseases ”

G K Mishra, district malaria officer, said that on Friday a total of 78 samples were screened for dengue, out of which 13 tested positive bringing the total number of dengue cases to 80. “Chikungunya cases have risen to 82 and on Friday 93 samples were screened for the disease, out of which 16 tested positive,” Mishra said.

“Though there is a steady rise in the incidence of chikungunya and dengue, so far there has been no death reported whereas last year there were two dengue deaths,” Mishra said.

When asked about the measures being taken by the health department to check the outbreak, Mishra said fogging was being carried out on a war footing by a team of health volunteers in the affected areas. “We are keeping a watch in areas like Sahibabad, Loni and those near the Delhi border where the maximum number of cases are reported,” Mishra said.

The Ghaziabad Minicipal Corporation (GMC) is going according to a fogging schedule. “On Saturday fogging was done in the Kavi Nagar zone and Mirzapur area under the Vijaynagar zone and a day before we conducted the exercise in Patel Nagar, Udal Nagar and Jagdish Nagar,” a GMC official said.

Last year, 1,540 samples tested positive in government labs while 1,800 tested positive in private labs. Though only two dengue deaths were officially confirmed in the city, unofficially the toll was reported to have crossed 10.