Govt, MCDs drive not going to serve purpose, says AIIMS.
Experts at the country’s premier health institute, AIIMS, said that the fogging drive started by the Delhi government and the civic bodies to control vector borne diseases is not going to serve the purpose. The AIIMS, however, emphasised that chikungunya “cannot cause death” and attributed co-morbidity as the factor, which causes fatality in rare cases.
Nodal officer of AIIMS’s Disease Prevention Outbreak and Response Cell, Dr Anil Goswami said that an integrated approach is required to control spread or outbreak of vector borne diseases and it must be environmental friendly.
“To get maximum result in preventing dengue or chikungunya, an integrated approach with one or two method should be developed to control the breeding. After outbreak of disease in national capital everyone started talking about fogging and started doing it. First of all everyone must understand fogging is not environment friendly and it should be done before the outbreak of diseases,” added Dr Goswami.
Professor, department of microbiology, AIIMS, Dr Lalit Dar said that fogging only kills adult mosquito and not mosquito larva. “Most of fogging started by the different agencies are done outdoor not indoors where breeding goes unnoticed,” said Dr Dar.
Experts at AIIMS advised instead of fogging one should get Indoor Residual Spray and spray inside homes or offices. “IRS should be done over the wall and it has lasting effect in stopping mosquito breeding. Similarly, space spray should be done inside residential and commercial spaces to stop mosquito breeding at hidden place like behind the curtains or cupboards,” advised Dr Goswami.
Experts at AIIMS also said that chikungunya is an auto-immune disease which means once a person is affected from the disease he or she will be immune for it for life time. They also claimed that high number of patients may be due to presence of large number of population added in the city since 2007 when the country witnessed outbreak of chikungunya. “In 2007, 14 lakhs patients of chikungunya was reported from country which also include patients from Delhi and those affected then have developed immunity against it. But in eight nine years, population in the national capital has increased which includes migrants, children born after 2007 and others with lower immunity level can be one of the reason behind high number of cases this year,” added Dr Dar.
AIIMS, however, asserted that chikungunya “cannot cause death” and attributed “co-morbidity” as the factor, which causes fatality in rare cases. “1 out of 1,000 people, that is 0.1 per cent run the risk of dying due to chikungunya complications, and that too if the patient has co-morbid conditions. Chikungunya is otherwise non-fatal,” head of the department of medicine, AIIMS, Dr S.K. Sharma said.
AIIMS Director Dr M.C. Misra said that if one analyses the deaths attributed to chikungunya being reported in Delhi he you would realise that most of them had co-morbid conditions, like hypertension or diabetes or renal problems, chikungunya as such cannot cause death.
