'Dengue a global problem, India not doing enough to prevent it'

Recent rise in mosquito borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya has taken a toll on the nation's capital Delhi and many other major states.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Devi Shetty, Chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya said that dengue is a global problem but India is not doing enough to prevent it.

In line with the proverb 'prevention is better than cure', Shetty said that focus should be on cleaning cities and preventing mosquito breeding rather than worry about getting a vaccine.Below is the verbatim transcript of Devi Shetty's interview to Latha Venkatesh, Sonia Shenoy and Anuj Singhal on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: Can you start by telling us what the situation is currently in Karnataka, how many cases of dengue and chikungunya have been recorded, how much has it gone up by, what is the casualty rate now?A: I don’t think Karnataka has much higher incidents of dengue compared to other major cities of India. It is alarming in every state. It is a city borne disease and it is a big problem.So Karnataka -- we see in our hospitals large number of dengue patients coming and most hospitals have reported large number of these patients. It is very seasonal fortunately, it happens during wet rainy season and when the weather gets dry, it goes off. It is a big problem in most parts of the country, it is a big problem in most of the African countries, Latin American countries. Dengue is a global problem, it is not confined to India but we are not doing enough to prevent it.Anuj: We don’t have any vaccine or drug available for dengue so far. Work is being done in that regard but still a bit perplexing.A: There is a vaccine, which is just released by Sanofi and rightfully the Indian drug controller is waiting for a file to release it because you cannot simply release vaccines by the government without knowing the side effects because these are new vaccines. It can be potentially dangerous.So they are conducting some trial and hopefully it should be released but overt dependence on the vaccines is not the right way. What we have to do is to eradicate the mosquitoes and that is an easier option than vaccinating people because it is not that everybody gets vaccinated and they are cured or prevented from getting the dengue. It doesn’t work like that.Only 60-70 percent of the people at the best may be protected and you are talking about vaccinating the whole country. It is not an easy task, it is not a simple task. I won't overtly depend on the vaccination, I would expect city to be cleaned.Most cities are very dirty, we have hardly any garbage disposal system and if it is there, it doesn’t work. There are various problems starting from garbage mafia to the lack of disposal areas, local protests, we have to come up with a solution. You drive in any part of the city today, in Bangalore or Delhi or any other big cities in our country, all over the place. You find heaps of garbage everywhere. This is very unacceptable and only government can solve it.Sonia: I was reading that the Delhi government is taking some efforts or rather they are planning to increase the beds across Delhi government hospitals by 1,000. They are also launching a chikungunya and dengue helpline. Is the Karnataka government doing anything like this and would Narayana Hrudayalaya look to increase their beds as well?A: There are enough beds in every state for dengue. I was just looking at the data in Delhi when there was a hue and cry about the shortage of beds. A lot of beds were available in most of the Delhi hospitals and I know from the doctors who are working in the government hospitals that there were enough beds available. Bed is not a problem.Second thing is bed is required for a very small percentage of the patients with dengue fever. It is not that every patient with Dengue requires a hospitalisation. I had dengue, I know what dengue is.So, essentially what is important is we have to be practical in approaching solving the problem. When the disease happens -- of course there are a lot of things we can do.The other main concern we have as doctors is that the incident is underreported across the country whether it is southern states or northern states, it is grossly underreported.First thing is we have to accept there is a problem whether a dengue report comes from a private hospital or a government lab, we have to accept that it is a report, which comes from a hospital, it has to be trusted and then we should have the data.Once you have the accurate data then we know, which are the belts in the city, which is more vulnerable because these mosquitoes don’t travel from one end of the city to the other end of the city. They all live in one area where there is a large quantity of water, which is standstill and lot of garbage, which is not disposed off. So if you have the exact data then you can take action.However, today every government in the country is trying to underreport the incidents. A lot of the governments, I am not sure about the Delhi government but I know quite a few governments, if a dengue positive report comes from a private lab, they say that we don’t accept it. So we cannot shut our eyes, this is the reality, we accept it and take action.