KOLHAPUR: The Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Thursday initiated a seven-day drive - second in the last one month- to stop the spread of dengue as recently several cases of dengue were reported across the city.However, this time the number of teams deployed for the drive has increased from five to 11. On the first day of the drive, the teams searched 1,625 houses and found the mosquito breeding in 161 homes.Over 100 high fever patients were also reported during the drive and their blood samples of have been sent to Sentinel Laboratory for testing. Vijay Patil, KMC's chief sanitation inspector, said, "The teams carried out fogging, destroying contaminated containers, removal of the garbage and other waste from the areas. Even though it was heavily raining, we covered maximum houses in six major areas of the city. Around 130 workers from various civic departments are part of the teams along with health officials of all the family welfare centres."The officials claim that citizens are not taking adequate care to stop the spread of dengue as they found that the people are resorting to storing water in containers for long time.Since January this year, two deaths have been reported due to dengue as per the reports of the private hospitals. The KMC has sent the samples of around 125 high fever patients since the start the start of this month for testing of which 30 tested positive for dengue."From Friday onwards, the drive will be intensified. We have made it strict for the teams to report the location of their visit, families visited and the areas covered every day so that we can track the drive properly. Additional staff will be deployed to seize unused tyres and containers located along the road side as they can be the breeding grounds for mosquitoes," Patil said.

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