HYDERABAD: Ranga Reddy district might be home to the IT corridor, swanky gated residential communities and malls, but it is not immune from the menace of dengue, including in the sought after Serilingampally Mandal which is home to areas like Madhapur, Kondapur, Gachibowli and Chandanagar.
In fact, the number of persons affected with dengue over the last five years has drastically gone up in this district, by around 29 times and most of it is due to urbanized parts of the district like Serilingampally and Narsingi, shows an analysis of the confirmed cases of vector-borne diseases malaria, dengue and chikungunya reported in the Ranga Reddy district in the period 2014-2018.
The district also recorded two Japanese encephalitis cases last year. None were recorded between 2014-2017. Out of the 30 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) from the district where the data of vector-borne disease was analysed, 23 PHCs were affected.
This analysis of data was conducted by Rambabu Ayyadevara, Deputy Director of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program and District Malaria Officer of the Ranga Reddy district which was published recently in a medical journal.
According to the data which was collected from the office of the Ranga Reddy District Medical and Health Officer for the report, the number of dengue cases confirmed through ELISA test increased from just five in 2014 to 41 in 2015 and to 150 in 2018. However, when it comes to malaria, the number of cases declined in the district from 32 confirmed cases in 2014 to 21 cases in 2018.
The report points out that Abdullapurmet, Balapur and Saroornagar are dengue prone areas. It also pointed out that Narsingi and Serilingampally reported the highest number of dengue cases, and last year even a dengue outbreak was reported from Serilingampally PHC. It was also observed that the months of August, September, October and November usually record the highest number of dengue cases. Also, malaria-prone areas in the district are Serlingampally, Balapur, Narsingi and Abdullapurmet.