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As if Covid-19 weren’t enough, the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India is facing a major dengue epidemic. The tropical mosquito-borne disease has already infected nearly 600 people and killed dozens.
Dengue fever is spread through mosquito bites, causing rashes, high fever, headache, vomiting, and muscle and joint pain. Its severe phase can be fatal, with the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that the virus’s death rate could exceed 20% without proper medical care.
A dengue vaccine was developed by the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur in the mid-2010s and is currently approved in around 20 countries. However, the Dengvaxia vaccine is only given to those who have already recovered from the disease or to people in areas where the virus is endemic. Trials of the vaccine found that it increased the risk of severe dengue fever in those who had never been infected before.
The disease has become a global problem in recent decades, with between 100 and 400 million infections recorded each year, mostly in Asia and South America, according to the WHO. India had reported a multi-year low of 56 dengue deaths in 2020, but it appears to be making a comeback in the country this year.
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The epicenter of the current outbreak is located in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The Firozabad region has been the hardest hit, with a total of 578 officially confirmed cases of dengue in the past 30 days, according to the additional director of the health department, AK Singh.
The Times of India (TOI) newspaper cited medical sources who claimed that around 12,000 people in the area were confined to their beds with a high fever. The death toll from dengue had reached 114 people, mostly children, in Firozabad on Sunday, the newspaper said.
Public hospitals are struggling to accommodate all patients, with prices skyrocketing at private medical facilities, he added.
Dengue infections have actually exceeded the number of coronavirus cases in Uttar Pradesh, with authorities saying on Monday there were only 184 Covid-19 patients in the state and reporting more than half of its territory “Coronavirus-free”. Since the start of the pandemic, Uttar Pradesh had recorded 1.7 million confirmed cases and nearly 22,900 deaths linked to Covid-19.
In his interview with TOI, Singh attributed the spike in dengue fever to a “Lack of sanitation and hygiene”, the most affected areas being located nearby “Unclear drains and areas affected by waterlogging. “
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The situation deteriorated further because many poor families first took their sick relatives to amateur doctors, whom the official described as “charlatans,” and only visited doctors when their condition worsened, he said.
The authorities have implemented a set of preventive measures to stem the spread of dengue, targeting carriers of the disease. They released thousands of Gambusia, or mosquitoes, into Firozabad’s water bodies to eat mosquito larvae, while sending special teams to check household waterlogging and fumigate areas at risk.
Cases of dengue have also been reported in other parts of the country, including New Delhi. According to a new civic report, there were 34 infections in the Indian capital in the first 11 days of September. A total of 158 people have contracted the mosquito-borne virus in the city since the start of the year.
Dengue outbreaks usually occur in India between July and November, but they can sometimes extend until mid-December.
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