Hospitals in New Delhi are battling with a huge rush of dengue patients, with some opening their reserved COVID-19 wards for patients of the mosquito-borne disease.

Officials on Tuesday said hospitals in India’s capital, New Delhi, were receiving dozens of dengue cases daily, even more than the COVID-19 infections.

Rajni Kherwal, medical superintendent at the Swami Dayanand hospital, said the current situation of dengue is very bad in New Delhi.

“We are getting many cases of fever, almost 250 to 300 cases of fever, and out of that 70 to 80 per cent are dengue cases,” Mr Kherwal said.

According to doctors at the government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital, 20 to 25 new dengue patients are hospitalised every day, with 40 to 50 suspected cases of fever.

Over 7,127 cases of dengue fever have been reported so far this year in New Delhi, and at least 10 people have died of the disease, the highest number of fatalities since 2017.

The local government directed the hospital authorities to use the beds reserved for COVID-19 patients for dengue patients.

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that has rapidly spread in all the country’s regions in recent years. Dengue virus is transmitted by female Aedes mosquitoes.

Health experts say those who become infected with the virus a second time are at a significantly greater risk of developing severe disease.

It causes fever, body ache, nausea, vomiting and internal bleeding or a fatal drop in blood pressure in severe cases. 

(NAN)