Rise in dengue, leptospirosis in last two months

MUMBAI: With accolades pouring in from the centre for the corporation’s malaria control measures, the challenge now is to sustain it. Civic officials maintained that other ailments have also come under control given the massive preventive measures, but figures have shown an increase in dengue and leptospirosis cases in the last two months.
The confirmed cases of dengue fever have gone up from 35 in August to 60 in September and 53 in October.For leptospirosis, the cases have gone up from 19 in August to 28 in September. The numbers, however, dropped in October, with 13 cases being reported positive. Cases of malaria, too, seem to have gone down as there were 2,551 positive cases in September and 2,126 in October.
Additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar said the rise was marginal. “The combat measures for dengue and malaria are similar. Our community health volunteers still go door-to-door to ensure there is no water stagnation, and hence breeding of mosquitoes,” she added. Civic reports have also shown how the malarial parasite load (or slide positivity rate) in the community has come down from 7.63 in 2010 to 1.87 in October this year. The centre now plans to replicate the combat measures in other states and a workshop is being planned this month.
Dr M K Dave, a general physician at Borivali’s Karuna Hospital, also said the malaria and dengue cases are less than last year. “But, in the last two months, we had a steady number of patients trickling in every day,” she added. Dengue fever is spread by the bite of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and the symptoms vary slightly from malaria.
P D Hinduja Hospital intensivist Dr Khusrav Bhajan added that seven out of 10 cases are turning out to be dengue. “Patients are coming with severe bodyache and mild fever. The bodyache is so severe that they have problems stepping out of their homes,” he added. He, however, said that in the last few days the cases were under control. “But the corporation needs to watch out for typhoid and hepatitis cases as water-borne problems seem to be plaguing the city this year,” he added.
Sion Hospital head of medicine Dr N D Moulick said the rise in dengue and leptospirosis cases had been sporadic. “We have seen 155 cases of fever, of which most have symptoms of dengue. Malaria too has seen a marginal increase from 158 cases in September to 168 in October,” she added. The hospital is also looking at investigating cases that get labelled as fever. “We want to know what these cases actually are and whether we need better investigating tools,” she added.