Spike in chikungunya cases, 2,000 test positive at AIIMS

September 24, 2016 12:00 am | Updated November 01, 2016 08:32 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

Patients queue up at a dispensary.file photo

Patients queue up at a dispensary.file photo

Though civics bodies have reported only about 2,625 confirmed cases of chikungunya in the city, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) noted that it has at least 2,000 blood samples that tested positive for the vector-borne disease.

Chikungunya cases are on the rise in the city, with several parts of north India witnessing an outbreak after nearly 10 years. City hospitals have reported at least 15 deaths, including one at AIIMS, due to chikungunya-related complications.

‘Co-morbid conditions’

“One of 1,000 people or 0.1 per cent run the risk of dying due to chikungunya-related complications. That too if the patient has co-morbid conditions. Chikungunya otherwise is non-fatal,” AIIMS head of the Department of Medicine S. K. Sharma said on Friday, ahead of a public lecture organised by the institute.

“If you analyse the deaths attributed to chikungunya being reported in Delhi, you will realise that most of them had co-morbid conditions like hypertension or diabetes or kidney or other renal problems,” said AIIMS director M.C. Misra.

Lalit Dar of the Department of Microbiology at AIIMS noted that the rising cases of chikungunya after the 2006 outbreak could be due to “Delhi having a lot of migrant population and a generation born after 2006”.

“Since they were not exposed to the viral strain in 2006 and did not grow immune, they are getting affected by it,” said Dr. Dar.

He added that AIIMS laboratories “tested 3,500 cases of chikungunya samples, of which 2,000 or nearly 58 per cent tested positive. In the case of dengue, out of 8,500 samples, only 474 tested positive. We have been studying the virus type for the past two-and-a-half months in our labs.”

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