The dengue outbreak, which had at last count infected nearly 25,000 people — close to 4,000 of them in Delhi alone — this year, could in fact be much bigger than these numbers. Huge underreporting of the incidence of the disease is hampering the response and exposing many to danger, expert’s say.According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 20,000 confirmed cases of dengue were reported every year on average between 2006 and 2012. There were 75,808 cases in 2013, and 40,571 in 2014. However, a landmark 2014 study by the government’s National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), New Delhi, found that India could have had “an annual average of 5,778,406 clinically diagnosed dengue cases, or 282 times the reported number per year” between 2006-2012. There is a lot of shouting and promises of action but the pre-epidemic plans never got going…clearly. No wonder the hospitals can extort up to Rs20,000 for a unit of platelets.Overloaded hospitals, patients sharing beds, exploitation of the illness, absolutely no concept of a red alert, no community program to save ourselves and all this rubber banded by a fatalistic and often stoic surrender to the inevitable. That damn mosquito is democratic to the core. It doesn’t care who it bites. With 1,800 people down and the casualty count soaring by the hour (14 dead) it is time to stop seeing it as some sort of inevitable spring fest. And really, who the hell cares about the litany of figures and statistics that are marched out every morning in the media. How is the administration fighting back? By now the Health Ministry must be having a pretty decent idea where the breeding grounds for these mosquitoes are and the army should be called in if necessary to join the municipality services in attacking swamps and stagnant pools. Every family should get up in the morning and ensure there are no damp corners in their homes. Places where crowds gather like schools, railway stations, bus depots, airports should be totally sanitized. Slums should be seen as high threat areas and blanketed with disinfectant. Pharmaceutical companies should distribute subsidized prophylactics and DDT cans to every locality where a Dengue Action Committee should co-ordinate efforts to remove all areas that are possible breeding grounds. By now a campaign should be in full flow warning people to exercise hygiene. Fine the defaulters. If we don’t make this a community war on every possible front and lie back and wait for the authorities to do it you bet it won’t go away. The 2013 record of over 75,000 cases will be surpassed. Kejriwals and commoners will be equally susceptible.
pk.shafaqna.com
