Dengue cases in TN down to 53 from 684 in 3 months: Govt to HC

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy adjourned the case after directing the circulation of the status report to the petitioner, advocate AP Suryaprakasam. 

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan submitted that in addition to the routine containment measures in high-risk areas, rapid response team with a vehicle and fogging machines, larvicide and disinfectants were deployed. The team consists of block medical officer, epidemiologist, entomologist, health inspectors and domestic breeding checkers. 

He added that the government has permitted to fill up the 384 vacant postd out of the total sanctioned post of 2,894 health inspectors (Gr II). In the meanwhile, to carry out uninterrupted services in the field, additional 2,715 health inspectors have been engaged temporarily to carry out the disease control measures, including COVID control activities. 

The health secretary also submitted that the number of dengue cases in the State in January was 402 cases, which rose to 618 and 684 in February and March respectively. In April, it fell to 249 and reduced further to 55 and 54 cases in May and June respectively. 

In a separate counter, the Greater Chennai Corporation claimed that reorientation has been given to all the domestic breeding checkers to undertake door-to-door anti-larval activities to contain dengue. 

Fogging operation was intensified at all the hotspot locations and 8,256 new construction sites were enumerated, as these are the potential breeding sources for dengue-causing Aedes mosquitos. A total of 4588 kg of discarded tyres, which are considered as potential breeding source, were collected from all the 15 Corporation zones and a fine of Rs 3.02 lakh was collected from the offenders who failed to follow norms to prevent mosquito breeding. During April, May and June, only 52 dengue cases were reported in Chennai, it added in the submission.