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Mumbai tops list of dengue deaths in Maharashtra

Mumbai has received the dubious distinction of recording the highest number of dengue deaths in Maharashtra last year. According to the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) statistics, 126 persons died of dengue in the state between January and December.

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Mumbai has received the dubious distinction of recording the highest number of dengue deaths in Maharashtra last year. According to the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) statistics, 126 persons died of dengue in the state between January and December.

"Of these, 12 deaths were recorded in Mumbai, the highest in any municipal corporation or district area," said a senior health official from the state's National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP). Nagpur follows with eleven recorded dengue deaths. "Remote districts of Bhandara and Gondia have recorded 8 and 7 deaths respectively. All the other districts have recorded a maximum of up to three deaths or less," added the official.

In 2014, Maharashtra recorded 8,400 cases of dengue leaping ahead of the 5,600 cases recorded in 2013. According to the DHS, more cases were recorded in urban conglomerates than rural areas.

Priyesh Pathak, the 8-month-old baby who died of dengue on Friday, lived in Indira Smruti Chawl in Kurar village, Malad (East). The area is replete with redevelopment construction sites and slums. The chawl is in a deplorable state and ignorance reigns supreme in residents. The dengue mosquitoe, Aedes Aegypti, breeds in clean stagnant water and in the inside of dark corners of houses. BMC's insecticide department found four breeding sites outside homes in the chawl where mosquitoe larvae was breeding in the open water drums.

BMC's insecticide officer Rajan Naringrekar said that the eggs laid by the mosquitoe are often stuck to the insides of the drum. "The eggs hatch when water is refilled. The residents should ideally scrub the drum hard before refilling it, which no one seems to do," said Naringrekar.

BMC has not taken enough initiative to train residents so as not to store water in open drums. "The workers have come here only once sometime last month and fumigated the area. They never informed us about the breeding patterns of the mosquitoes," said Sunil Tewari, 33, a resident of the chawl.

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