01 September,2010 08:12 AM IST | | Astha Saxena
MCD says the event is being held at the wrong time and at the wrong places
Corruption charges, inundated stadiums, caved-in roads, missed deadlines, zero hotel bookings and absentee athletes. Nothing is going right for the Commonwealth Games.
Now, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has said that the government chose the wrong time to hold the mega sporting event. The comment came in the wake of dengue threat to several Games venues with cases of vector-borne diseases on the rise in the national capital.
"This is not the right time to hold the Games. There is a cyclic trend in which dengue is high after every four years," said Dr VK Monga, chairman, health committee, MCD.
Sting operation
He also accused the organisers for choosing a "wrong place" to construct the Games village. "They are erecting the main facility in the Yamuna riverbed. Probably they have forgotten the fact that it is a natural habitat for Aedes Aegypti - mosquito that spreads dengue," Dr Monga said.
Apparently a slugfest is on between the MCD and the Delhi government with the two sides blaming each other for the spread of the dengue cases and passing the buck to each other on who is responsible for controlling the disease.
Risky business
The authorities were sitting easy with a survey declaring that this year dengue will not pose as serious a problem as it did in the year 2006. According to experts, the country is currently in the grip of dengue-1, genotype III, an infection of which was last witnessed in 2006 - when the national capital alone reported about 3,000 cases.
'Worse yet to come'
City doctors don't agree with the hypothesis that only a particular strain of the vector-borne disease is dangerous. "All types of dengue are equally dangerous," said Dr Satrawal, nodal officer, Lok Nayak Hospital.
Some also feel that dengue is yet to peak."The peak stage for dengue type 1 begins from the mid of September and continues till mid of October - the time for the Commonwealth Games," said a senior doctor, requesting anonymity. Dr Monga also blamed the rise in the cases on the unprecedented rains in the national capital this year. "Constant rains have also worsened the situation. Though we have a strong team of 3200 domestic breeding controllers (DBC), still the team has not been able to control the situation," said Monga.
Monga added that the civic authority has decided to take more preventive measures to fight the menace."We will conduct public awareness programmes betweenu00a0 September 3 and 9 as public participation is very important to fight any disease," said Monga.
CYCLISTS DOWN
Officials at a local hospital on Tuesday confirmed that two CWG core group cyclists -- Somvir and Vinod Malik -- were admitted for dengue treatment but their coach denied it. K Shah, PR officer of the Jessa Ram Hospital here, said both the cyclists were admitted but Mailk has been discharged after treatment. "Yes, they had dengue. Vinod was in hospital for the last few days and he was discharged yesterday. Somvir is still in hospital, receiving treatment," Shah said. National coach Chayan Chouwdhury still insists that none of their players contracted dengue, which has claimed many lives in the national capital.
916 Number of dengue cases reported in Delhi so far
4 Number of dengue cases reported till this time last year
