Areas under Borough X most affected in dengue

Kolkata: Areas in South Kolkata like Tollygunge, Bijoygarh, Jadavpur, Azadgarh, Netaji Nagar and others that fall under Borough X of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation are having the highest number of dengue cases in the city. The KMC health officers

attribute the rising number of cases to a number of under-construction buildings in the area where garbage and pockets of accumulated water have turned out to be breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes.

"The areas under Borough X are having a good number of construction works and the sites have been lying

vacant in many cases that has resulted in stagnant water and garbage accumulation. This has encouraged the dengue mosquitoes to breed.

Borough XI and XII are also having a reasonable number of dengue patients," a senior official of KMC health department said.

Debasis Biswas, Senior Vector Control Officer of KMC said that the civic body is spraying larvicides approved by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) to destroy mosquito larvae. Five types of larvicide extracted from Chrysanthemums flowers are being used by the civic body.

"People are of the impression that fogging on a regular basis will prevent them from getting affected from

dengue. But this is not the real case. Fogging is effective only in those places where there has been incidence of dengue," a KMC Healh official said.

Areas under KMC Borough X, XI and XII are also having vast stretches of vacant land that have turned into garbage dumps, thereby, encouraging Aedis mosquitoes.

The KMC will write to the state government urging them to take possession of such vacant lands that have been lying in the same condition for years and the owners are not found anywhere.

The civic body has also put up banners in such lands declaring it as 'dangerous' in the sense of becoming a breeding grounds of mosquitoes.