Mumbai: BMC Uses Drone to Control Vector-Borne Diseases as Cases Surge

The 10 square km area congested areas of Worli, Mahalaxmi, Lower Parel, N M Joshi Marg, and surroundings have notched a significantly high incidence of vector-borne diseases this year as compared to the previous year.

Mumbai: Mumbai’s civic body, on Monday, started using a drone as a means to sanitise the city’s Dhobi Ghat locality to contain the spread of monsoon-related diseases such as malaria, and dengue. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) started the sanitation drive after the city started reporting cases in multitudes — 10 cases in August 2020 to over 130 cases in the same month this year, mostly from the BMC B, F/South, and H/West wards.

Similarly, the country’s commercial capital has witnessed around 3,000 cases of malaria, over 275 of gastroenteritis, more than 35 cases each of leptospirosis and hepatitis, and over a dozen cases of H1N1. No fatalities have been reported. Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, who was present on the occasion along with Executive Health Officer Dr Mangala Gomare, said that massive awareness drives are being taken up all over the city on the monsoon-related diseases and how to prevent them.

Apart from the daily surveillance measures, the civic body focuses on early detection, diagnosis, treatment. All the hospitals and health centres have been directed to increase the number of blood smear examinations, and also add Covid tests to rule out the possibility of Covid-19 infection.

The 10 square km area congested areas of Worli, Mahalaxmi, Lower Parel, N M Joshi Marg, and surroundings have notched a significantly high incidence of vector-borne diseases this year as compared to the previous year. Last week, Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray said that in 2020 and this year, drones have been used to carry out anti-larval spray to old, dilapidated, or inaccessible structures, especially in G/South Ward where the numbers of dengueand malaria cases are higher.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had called upon the medical community to concentrate on the monsoon-related diseases alongside the coronavirus. BMC officials said the Mayor was given a detailed presentation on the drone operations, checking for accumulated water, fumigation, and sanitisation of a targeted area to make it malaria-free, and that similar operations would be carried out elsewhere in the city where cases are found.

(With Inputs from IANS)