Fresh spike in north, east adds to two-month problem in south

KOLKATA: A spurt in number of dengue cases in some specific areas of north, east and southern parts of the city has made the Kolkata Municipal Corporation top brass jittery. The spurt was witnessed especially a month before Durga pujas and a week after the festive period was over.


The civic health department rapid action team that is engaged in anti-dengue activities, found it difficult to contain a sudden spurt in the number of dengue cases in Sinthi, Dum Dum and Cossipore areas.

According to sources in the KMC headquarters, as many as 40 cases of dengue were detected from these areas in past 10 days. Added to this, large areas of Tangra, Tiljala and Topsia have been reeling under a dengue threat. A KMC health department official conceded it was proving to be an uphill task for the civic body to prevent dengue from spreading its tentacles in the areas located off Eastern Metropolitan Bypass.

“The way people from a few Tangra areas are getting infected, we are keeping our fingers crossed. If we fail to prevent the dreaded disease taking the EM Bypass-route, it may pose a greater threat,” the KMC official said. The civic official recalled that in 2017 dengue proved to be deadly once it originated at Salt Lake and took the Bypass route to reach large areas like Tiljala, Kasba, Ballygunge , Anandapur , Anwar Shah connector, Santoshpur ( Jadavpur ) and Patuli.

A section of KMC health department officials are also worried over fast spreading of dengue in large areas of southern fringes. Over 200 people have already been tested positive for dengue in past two months in areas such as Vidyasagar Palli, Ramgarh, Baghajatin , Bijoygarh, Golf Green, Azadgarh Jodhpur Park among others that fall under borough X.

In fact, the civic officials are more worried as they could not prevent death of two nine-year old girl children. Two deaths were reported simultaneously from Azadgarh and Bijoygarh. Deputy mayor Atin Ghosh, also in-charge of the KMC health department on Thursday conceded that the dengue scenario was particularly bad in some southern fringes because of presence of vacant land and locked houses, which had become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.