This monsoon, lepto emerges biggest killer with 12 deaths

MUMBAI: Even as monsoon is slowly withdrawing form the city,

dengue

and

leptospirosis

claimed a life each in the first fortnight of September. Monsoon-related ailments have claimed 19 lives this year, of which 12 deaths were due to leptospirosis.

The latest victim of the bacterial infection was an Andheri (W) resident who died within 48 hours of hospitalisation. The 37-year-old man was admitted with a history of high fever, chills and body ache for three days and several episodes of vomiting. The BMC’s public health department said the man, who was an alcoholic, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiorgan failure.

Leptospirosis has emerged as the biggest killer this monsoon, claiming a total of 12 lives. It’s also the highest number of leptospirosis deaths recorded in the last three years; there were seven casualties in 2017 and nine in 2016. BMC’s executive health officer Dr Padmaja Keskar said that leptospirosis cases have shown a decline with rains tapering off.

However, intermittent showers have led to a spurt in dengue,

malaria

and viral infection cases. The BMC report stated that nearly 2,400 hospitalisations in the first two weeks of September were caused by dengue-like illnesses. Over 300 malaria admissions were also recorded.

The dengue casualty was a 46-year-old woman from Malad, who the BMC claimed, had returned from Uttar Pradesh seven days before contracting the viral disease. The woman presented a history of fever, headache and body ache four to five days prior to getting hospitalized on September 1. Civic officials claims she was taken to hospital in a critical condition and succumbed within two hours of admission.

City

doctors

have witnessed a marked increase in mosquito-borne ailments. Following the dengue death, nearly 1,000 homes were screened in Andheri (W). The civic insecticide department is already carrying out a screening drive in all 24 wards. In 1,209 localities that were surveyed across the city, they found 2,911 dengue-causing aedes aegypti’s breeding sites and 228 malaria-causing anopheles breeding spots.

A case of cholera was detected from M-East ward—it covers Deonar, Anushakti Nagar, Govandi and Mankhurd— making it the 10th cholera case of this year.