Dengue cases in city increased by 265% in last five years, says report

Glaring statistics on falling health standards in the city have been pointed out by Praja Foundation, an NGO in its health report. Praja’s report said while cases of dengue and tuberculosis have drastically increased, dengue cases have increased by 265% and tuberculosis increased by 37%, in the last five years.

Praja Foundation director Milind Mhaske said there was a huge difference between the data received through RTI and data they themselves gauged. “As per the RTI data, the cases of dengue in government hospitals have increased from 4,867 in 2012-2013 to 17,771 in 20162017. But according to the survey we conducted, the total number of dengue cases in the city are estimated to be 1,09,443,” said Nitai Mehta of Praja Foundation.

The NGO’s report also revealed that the number of deaths has increased due to dengue. “The estimated dengue deaths have doubled from 77 cases in 2012-13 to 148 cases in 2016-17,” Mehta said.

Pathological laboratories of BMC still continue to use outdated rapid kits for dengue which gives negative report, the report said.

However, a BMC official said, “Civic health officials were informed by the state health department that they should perform ELISA tests instead of Rapid test for diagnosis of dengue because there is an increase in false positive cases by performing latter test.” He added that BMC will look into the NGO report that said zero dengue cases in vulnerable wards.