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Diwali cracker fumes dousing dengue

27-10-2014
27th October 2014

Courtesy: The Times of India

Diwali cracker fumes dousing dengue

NEW DELHI: The nip in the air and the thick Diwali smoke — its been lower this year as per the pollution data, but good enough to spell the doom for Aedes — could signal the beginning of the end of the dengue outbreak.

A week, is what experts predict, should take the disease to die its natural death. The number of fresh cases has already reduced, with 56 reported in the past 24 hours compared to 80-90 per day range since the beginning of the month.

Meanwhile, one person died at the AIIMS on Sunday, taking the dengue death toll in the Capital to 46. The total number of dengue cases in the Capital has now crossed the 2,000-mark, touching 2,051.

In 2003, the last epidemic year, the total number of cases reported was 2,882. Of the fresh cases reported in the past 24 hours, 22 were those who had visited the fever screening OPD of AIIMS and diagnosed with the disease, and had to be admitted.

Thirty others have been discharged from the hospital, which now has 179 dengue patients admitted and 60 others under observation.

The numbers attending the special OPD too have also halved with just 1,000 patients reporting in the past two days compared to about 1,000 patients per day earlier.

According to AIIMS medical superintendent, Dr D K Sharma: "This, to my mind, is the fallout of the lowering of temperature that causes the dengue mosquito to cease breeding. In about a week or so, we should see the end of the outbreak."

Agrees Dr Anoop Misra, consultant, internal medicine, Fortis Group of Hospitals: "The virus has an incubation period of 3-13 days. As it is the mosquito density had been going down because of the temperature change and now the cracker smoke, even though it was lower this year, would be the final death knell. Even if the smoke was not that dense, the damage to Aedes has been done."

The dengue mosquito, according to health experts, stops breeding at 18 degrees Celsius. The minimum temperature in the city on Sunday was 20 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, Delhi and NCR have so far seen 28 cases of chikungunya. The total number for the country is 1,665 with no confirmed deaths from the disease so far.

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