Only 221 dengue patients admitted in hospital, says Delhi govt

New Delhi, Oct 21 (IANS) The dengue situation in the national capital is under control with only 221 patients admitted in hospitals, the Delhi government said on Thursday.

"Dengue is completely under control in Delhi," a government statement said, adding that out of the 221 patients admitted in Delhi hospitals, only 179 patients are from Delhi and 42 have come from other states.

According to government sources, out of the 21 hospitals, three hospitals do not have a single patient admitted in them, while 10 hospitals have just single-digit patients.

Delhi had reported 1,069 dengue cases in 2019 till October, 612 cases in 2020 and 723 cases in 2021 so far. A total of 14,889 cases were reported in 2015, 3,650 in 2016, 3,829 in 2017, and 1,595 in 2018.

The Arvind Kejriwal government is also keeping a tab on spraying anti-dengue medicines and taking out cleanliness drives. "As a precautionary measure, the Kejriwal government has increased the number of beds in Delhi hospitals for vector-borne diseases," the release said.

As Covid infection rate in Delhi has come down to 0.06 per cent by October 17, the number of beds reserved for Covid patients in Delhi's hospitals has been decreased and allotted for the patients of vector-borne disease.

"The number of beds reserved for Covid patients in private hospitals has been reduced from 30 per cent to 10 per cent now. The number of Covid beds in LNJP Hospital has been reduced from 700 to 400 in this direction. The number of Covid beds in AGSS Hospital has been decreased from 600 to 350. Now these additional beds will be used for treatment of vector borne diseases," it added.

Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the number of cases this year will remain as low as that of 2020. "Last year, people were in homes and because of that cases came down rapidly. This year too, the situation is expected to remain the same," he added.