Delhi dengue situation past its worst or not, doctors divided

At a time when over 5,400 people in the national capital are affected with dengue, said to be its worst outbreak here in the last six years, a section of doctors in Delhi are divided on the subject as to whether the situation yet is past its worst phase or not.
The vector-borne disease has claimed 28 lives in the city, even though the death toll, as per the latest official figures, still stands at 17.
According to some city doctors, cases of dengue will continue to come up till next month, but its severity will decline over a period of time.

"Dengue will still last for a period of next two-three weeks as we are still getting new patients. I expect that the severity of the disease may decrease, but we will still see fresh cases of dengue. As humidity and hot weather continues, so breeding of mosquitoes is still going to occur.
"This year we have noticed large number of case fatalities in pediatrics because that is the vulnerable group. We also witnessed some cases of dengue shock syndrome which was not there last year," said Sanjeev Bagai, vice-chairman and director, Manipal Hospital, Dwarka.
Doctors have blamed civic agencies for the poor hygienic condition in the city that enhanced the dengue menace in Delhi and fear that after dengue there could be a rise in cases of malaria, chikungunya and common cold.

"There is a grave need on a war-footing to put in place public health system and sanitation. Till these issues are not addressed, we will have to face the issue of the vector-borne disease. As dengue will decline there will be an attack of malaria and chikungunya. There is an urgent need to improve sanitation to bring permanent end to the problem," Bagai said.

Weather could be one of the factors for divide in opinion in predicting peak of dengue. It's neither too hot, nor too cold. The high level of humidity provides the perfect atmosphere for the multiplication of mosquitoes.

As per doctors, if there is no further rain and waterlogging then it can lead to an end of the increased spell in the cases, but any fresh spell of rains could lead to resurgence.
"Usually by this time number of cases comes down and continue till Diwali. Weather has started changing, if it doesn't rain too much then breeding of mosquitoes will come down and we will see a fall in cases. But if we have sudden rain and there is waterlogging then we may again see increase in number of cases," said Randeep Guleria, professor of medicine at AIIMS.