Mosquito-Borne Diseases Kill 87 in India*

By NIRMALA GEORGE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 4, 2006; 4:15 PM

NEW DELHI -- Outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases in northern and
southern India left ordinarily overburdened hospitals and clinics
swamped with patients Wednesday, and officials reported at least 87 deaths.

The surging cases of dengue in the north and chikungunya in the south
come as the annual monsoon tapers off across much of the subcontinent,
leaving behind countless small pools and puddles of dirty, stagnant
water where infectious mosquitoes breed. Open sewers that are features
of many Indian towns and cities provide even more breeding grounds.

While a dengue outbreak is an annual post-monsoon occurrence in parts of
northern India, this year's has been particularly widespread, with more
than 400 cases compared to last year's 217 infections.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss blamed the spike in cases on a
construction boom in New Delhi, where scores of new malls, high-rise
apartment towers and office blocks are going up and a new subway system
is being built.

The result of the largely unregulated building boom is a city filled
with poorly maintained construction sites where water collects in pits,
adding to the already ample mosquito breeding grounds, Ramadoss told
reporters.

"There is a lot of stagnant water collecting in places due to
construction activity. We are aware of the health risks posed by this
and have begun a concerted campaign to make people aware of the need for
sanitation," he said.

Female Aedes mosquitoes transmit the disease, and symptoms include high
fever, joint pain, headache and vomiting. It is fatal in rare cases.
India's annual outbreak normally dies off with the end of the mosquito
breeding period in November.

Authorities in New Delhi were pressing home and business owners to spray
their properties with insecticide, and teams of municipal workers
sprayed some construction sites, office buildings and residential
neighborhoods. Fogging machines were also used to spread clouds of
insecticide in densely populated areas.

At New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India's premier
state-run hospital, a makeshift ward was set up in a hallway to deal
with hundreds of dengue fever patients, some of whom were forced to hold
intravenous drip bags above their heads because of a lack of equipment.

The dengue outbreak began in late August, and the death toll in New
Delhi and surrounding areas of northern India rose to 16 Wednesday when
a patient at the institute died.

The situation was even worse in the southern state of Kerala, where 71
people have died in the past month from chikungunya, a rare
mosquito-borne viral fever, said the state's health minister, P. K.
Sreemathi.

In the hardest-hit district of the state, Alappuzha, some 40,000 people
were showing symptoms of the disease, and thousands had been
hospitalized, said the area's chief medical officer, K. Velayudhan.

Across the state, local authorities were overwhelmed by the outbreak,
and Sreemathi said a World Health Organization team made up of experts
from India's National Institutes of Communicable Diseases was to arrive
Thursday.

"The expert heath team from WHO needs to make an on-the-spot assessment
to tackle the situation," she told The Associated Press from Alappuzha.