NOIDA: In the past three months, there have been only four cases of dengue reported from Noida hospitals, claims the health department.Out of these, three are patients from Gautam Budh Nagar while one is from Ghaziabad.The department, which had tested 104 samples taken from the different private hospitals and the district hospital, found only four positive. Interestingly though, the number of dengue cases reported at the super speciality paediatric hospital and post graduate paediatric institute (SSPHPGTI) in sector 30, will be “reported separately,” says the department.The reason: the child PGI’s laboratory is not included in the list of 37 sentinel laboratories of the district hospitals authorised by the UP government for testing of suspected dengue cases.District malaria officer (DMO) Rajesh Sharma told TOI that the report of the four dengue cases confirmed at the child PGI will be shared with the government separately.However, as many as three private hospitals including Jaypee, Kailash and Metro which conduct Eliza tests have said they have reported around 70 cases this season.While the Jaypee hospital, Sector 128, has said that there have been 25 dengue cases reported so far, at the Kailash hospital, Sector 27, the number is about 25.At the Metro Hospital, Sector 12, the number is 17.“Our cases have been registered with the health department,” said a spokesperson for the Metro hospital. A spokesperson for the Jaypee hospital said that they conduct both rapid card and Eliza tests.Dr Sarika Chandra of the Kailash hospital said that they are regularly sharing the cases with the health department but only the health department is authorised to declare the confirmed cases.While the major private hospitals conduct both the type of tests, there are some which conduct only the rapid card tests and send the confirmed samples to private laboratories for confirmation of the disease.These include the Felix hospital, Sector 137 and the Neo hospital, Sector 50.Dr Nikhil Mehrotra, medical superintendent, Felix hospital told TOI that around five dengue cases have been reported at their hospital so far but they have been confirmed by card tests. “We send the samples for confirmation with an Eliza test to the private laboratories,” he said.The DMO himself said that some of the hospitals have been sending samples tested only with the rapid card test and the same is not allowed.On Tuesday, the Neo hospital sent a report of five cases tested only by rapid card tests.“We do not recognise the card tests. We have strictly instructed all the private hospitals to confirm the cases using the Eliza tests,” he tests.Dr Gulab Gupta, physician, Neo hospital, told TOI that he would check with the pathologist about the information.Meanwhile, the reason for the less number of cases being reported this year is the prevalence of the dengue 3 virus- a relatively less harmful virus type, doctors said.Dr HM Lavania, pathologist, district hospital told TOI that there are variations reported in the dengue virus every year.Last year, there were around 330 dengue cases reported at the child PGI alone till November 1, as reported by TOI.Meanwhile, there are very few chikungunya cases being reported this year while as many as 117 malaria cases have been reported till September 10 as compared to the 165 reported last year.

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