Pune has registered a whopping 741 cases of dengue this year so far. September and October have seen the highest number of cases at 126 and 133 respectively. While the winter chill has brought down the number of cases last week,warmer days as predicted by the Met department has again spiked up the cases with ten new infections being reported on Sunday. Dr S T Pardeshi,acting medical chief of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) attributed this rise to variations in weather. On several days the morning chill is soon offset by warm weather during the day,he said. According to IMD,the trend of rising temperature is likely to continue for the next 24 hours. The minimum temperature is likely to be go upto 15 degree Celsius,a release said. We are picking up new cases daily as the health department has been collating data from private hospitals. Earlier,we would get cases only from state run Sassoon general hospital or PMC run hospitals, Pardeshi admitted. According to Dr Rajesh Gadia,consulting physician at KEM hospital,it is a known fact that cases of dengue infection rise post monsoon. The sudden rain few weeks ago also led to accumulation of stagnant water with the existing garbage,he said. Pardeshi said that their ongoing survey has detected a large number of breeding spots at households. Doctors admit though that the cases have been mild with few being hospitalized. As against the large number of dengue cases,there have been 141 cases of malaria and 38 cases of chikungunya from January till date,Pardeshi said.
