HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad, which has over one crore population and over 1,400 slums, is in the grip of vector-borne diseases as the GHMC does not have adequate fogging machines.
The GHMC has just 150 portable and 13 vehicle-mounted machines for fogging operations for the entire city.
So far nearly 400 dengue cases have been reported officially by the GHMC. The number has been doubled as compared to 220 cases in 2017 and 179 cases in 2018.
The purpose of fogging operations is to kill or knock-down any adult mosquitoes that may be carrying the dengue virus. The mosquitoes become infected with the virus after biting a dengue patient. Fogging has to be carried out at regular intervals to fight dengue, but this is not happening due to lack of sufficient machines.
GHMC officials admitted that fogging machines are inadequate to deal with the present situation. With just 150 portable fogging machines for each division, a person goes door-to-door to fog one colony per day and covers a few dozen colonies each depending on the size of the division.
GHMC has decided to double fogging operations in two shifts with the available machines and staff.