Kejriwal working on making Delhi 'mosquito free': Sisodia

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has issued directions for a comprehensive plan to make Delhi mosquito free, said Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday.

Kejriwal chaired a meeting of concerned officials to take preventive measures to tackle the menace of dengue and chikungunya in the coming months.

"The Chief Minister has given instructions to make a comprehensive proposal to make Delhi mosquito free in which help of concerned officials of Union Government, Delhi government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and neighbouring towns of Delhi-NCR region should be taken," said Sisodia in a press briefing.

Informing about the preventive measures, Sisodia said the Chief Minister has ordered to fix the fee of private hospitals that would be treating dengue and Chikungunya

He also said that the Delhi Government has decided to ban sale of Brufen group of medicines during dengue or chikungunya season.

"The public in general should also understand that painkilling Brufen group of medicines may make dengue or chikungunya patients critical," said Sisodia.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that "all the government hospitals have been asked to increase 10 to 20 percent beds for the fever patients".

Last year 400 fever clinics were created and this year number of fever clinics will be created, said Sisodia.

He said to prevent patients from harassment of locating vacant beds the Delhi Government would be setting up a call centre.

"The government will be setting up a control room to assist patients who would be seeking beds in different government hospitals. This control room would be having latest information of vacant beds in different government hospitals," said Sisodia.

He said efforts would also be made to include information of private hospitals' beds in the control room database.

At least 1,158 cases of dengue were reported in Delhi with nearly 390 of them being recorded in the first 10 days of September, the month in which the vector- borne disease begins to peak. As half September month crossed, the death toll from two vector-borne diseases climbed to 30 and the number of affected people crossed 2,800.

Miffed with the reported deaths, the Supreme Court pulled up the Delhi government for not handling the situation properly and making the people suffer in Delhi.