1,852 dengue cases registered in city this year

Hyderabad: Ten out of the 33 districts in Telangana have reported maximum cases of dengue, and the state capital Hyderabad tops the list with over 1,800 cases in the government hospitals during the last eight months.

Along with dengue, Chikungunya cases have also increased this season and the high risk district for this issue is also Hyderabad, which had so far reported 61 cases. According to officials, the seasonal diseases usually rise in the months of August and September due to rains and increase in vector density. This year too, there were a huge number of dengue cases reported in the State. The officials informed that from January 1 this year to August 25, the total number dengue cases reported were 5,372 out of the 81,932 samples tested and the positive rate was at 6.5 per cent.

The top ten dengue high risk districts were Hyderabad with 1,852 positive cases, Suryapet with 471 cases, Medchal Malkajgiri (426), Khammam (375), Nalgonda (315), Nizamabad (286), Rangareddy (232), Jagtial (185), Sangareddy (160) and Warangal 110 cases.

Similarly, there has been a spurt in the Chikungunya cases this year. From January 1 to August 25, 152 cases were reported out of the samples of 2,673 and the positive rate being at 5 per cent. The Chikungunya high risk districts were Hyderabad with 61 cases, Wanaparthy with 17 cases and the Mahabubnagar district with 19 cases. From January 1 till August 25, total reported Malaria cases were 191 out of 23,19,283 samples tested and Positivity was 0.008 per cent.

The State government had initiated a fever survey on July 23 and as on August 25, the total number of houses visited by the health department were 1,42,78,723. The total number of persons screened were 4,40,06,799 and the total number of fever cases identified were 2,65,324.

The officials said that in the state there were 42 T-Hub labs functioning with adequate testing and 53 blood banks functioning with Adequate blood units. In all 33 districts, 108 Ambulances were functional and medicines and logistics for malaria were made available in all districts.