Delhi : Awareness drive soon for dengue, chikungunya

New Delhi, July  (IANS)  On Tuesday Health Minister Satyendar Jain said. The Delhi government will launch a campaign from August 1 to make people aware about vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya, Without revealing the details, he said sensitisation of people about dengue and chikungunya will be done on a broad level with all available modes including advertisement in newspapers, awareness campaigns in schools, putting up hoardings across the city.

The Minister said that till July 16 this year, 98 cases of dengue have been reported in Delhi while 82 cases were from outside Delhi. In total, 180 dengue patients were provided treatment in Delhi government hospitals.

"No death has been reported so far due to dengue and chikungunya in Delhi. As many as 23,094 cases of dengue were reported across the country and 32 people have died due to dengue across the nation," Jain said.

He also briefed the media about cases of malaria and chikungunya cases and said that 245 malaria patients were treated at Delhi government hospitals out of which 117 were from outside Delhi.

As many as 127 cases of chikungunya have been reported in Delhi while 68 cases were from outside Delhi and a total of 195 chikungunya patients were treated in Delhi government hospitals.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader also provided data regarding swine flu patients and said that 320 such cases were reported in the city while 83 cases came from other cities but were treated at Delhi government hospitals. 

Only two patients belonging to Delhi have died in April and May due to swine flu while two patients from outside have died of the flu here.

"Deaths due to swine flu were only 0.68 per cent of the total cases in Delhi while this percentage was quite high in other states," Jain said.

He said that since January 1 this year, some 81 people have died of swine flu in Gujarat while the number of patients was 339, similarly out of 412 swine flu patients 59 have died in Rajasthan and out of 2,738 swine flu patients 303 have died in Maharashtra.

"In Gujarat the percentage of death of swine flu patients was 23.89 per cent, in Rajasthan it was 14.32 per cent, in Maharashtra it was 11.07 per cent and in Kerala it was 5.64 per cent," the minister said.

The Minister said the Delhi government has made all the preparations to deal with swine flu cases. "We have all the medicines available in adequate quantity. One of the key factors behind deaths in several states is probably unavailability of medicines," Jain added