Dengue cases in the country have surged over last two years

New Delhi: There has been a surge in dengue  cases in the country in 2012 when as many as 50,222 cases were reported against 18,860 in 2011. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Rajya Sabha today that 28,292 cases were reported during the year 2010 of the outbreak prone disease transmitted through mosquito bites.

He said in view of upsurge and geographical spread of dengue to newer areas, a mid-term plan has been developed for prevention and control of dengue and many advisories have been issued from time to time to control and manage the outbreak of dengue.

Field visits are carried out to assess the preparedness and to provide technical guidance to states, Azad said in a written reply to a query, adding that training is imparted to clinicians on case management as per GOI guidelines and to other health care functionaries on programme activities.

For augmenting diagnostic facilities, the number of Sentinel Surveillance Hospitals (SSHs) with laboratory support has been increased to 347 across the country from 110 and linked with 14 apex referral laboratories with advanced diagnostic facilities for back up support for Dengue across the country, he said.

The Minister said ELISA based IgM test kits are provided to these institutes through National Institute of Virology, Pune free of cost and a total of 1097 dengue diagnostic kits (1 Kit= 96 tests) have been provided by the Centre to SSHs during this year til July 22.

He said ELISA based NS1 test has been provided for early detection of cases from 1st day of disease in addition to IgM test which can detect the Dengue case after five days of disease.

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