Dakshina Kannada district is reeling under dengue with 482 cases and three suspected deaths being reported in the last 25 days. A majority of the fever cases are in Mangaluru.
Notwithstanding source reduction activities by the district administration, there has been a spurt in the number of patients being admitted to hospitals in the city since a week. The number of cases has shot up from about 10 patients per day two weeks ago to about 30 now.
District Disease Surveillance Officer Navinchandra Kulal said three persons, including 35-year-old video journalist Nagesh Padu, were suspected to have died of dengue. It will be confirmed only after a detailed audit by a committee. The autopsy report of a 10-year-old boy, who was tested positive for dengue and died on July 16, is awaited, Dr. Kulal said.
The district reported 584 dengue cases in 2018.
The spurt in dengue is not unusual for the coastal city, which reports the highest number of malaria cases in the State. The malaria parasite-carrying anopheles mosquito and dengue virus-carrying aedes aegypti mosquito breed in fresh water stocks in and around houses. The number of these two vector borne diseases rises when there is intermittent rain.
According to Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil S., a similar spurt in dengue cases was reported in 1994 and 2004. In 2015, there were 465 dengue cases and four deaths in the district, of which three deaths were suspected to be owing to dengue.
Apart from intermittent rain, another contributing factor is irregular water supply that leads to people storing drinking water in plastic materials, which turn into mosquito breeding sources, said health officials. Unlike the system developed by the Mangaluru City Corporation for malaria disease surveillance, there is no system in place for continuous monitoring of dengue and other vector borne diseases.
Mr. Senthil suspended the district’s Disease Surveillance Officer about two weeks ago for his reported negligence in initiating preventive measures against dengue.
Three-member team
A three-member team comprising an epidemiologist, entomologist and a data entry operator has been calling hospitals and laboratories in the city every day to record the number of dengue patients and map it on a specially developed system.
