Gurgaon and dengue

Gurgaon. Dengue.

Two words - I'd never heard of before I lived in Asia! But part of my life these days.

Gurgaon is like India's equivalent of Basingstoke. About a 25 min drive South of Delhi, it's all very new and very modern and sadly very concrete. Very Basingstoke c.early eighties. I've been spending an increasing amount of time there - before this year, I'd never heard of the place, but think this is my fifth or sixth visit now. Reason? It's where the IT companies are located in Northern India - including our Microsoft client (which is why I am in Gurgaon now).

The area could be really great - but is strangled by poor infrastructure ... takes HOURS to commute into Delhi by road from here ... and yet it's a journey of only a few KM. And, this is India, so we have amazing contrasts off rich and poor living alongside each other. Walking to my car from the high-tech Microsoft offices today, I had to side step round a herd of cows. Fantastic.

So I got in the car ... the driver wound the windows up and I promptly got accosted by 1,008 fat mosquitoes. The drivers in India have the annoying (but understandable) habit of waiting for you (all day!) with the car windows wound down - so you get all sorts of bugs in the car alongside you. [As an aside, in HK I was recently warned against leaving the car roof down all night - apparently, pythons just love to shelter in cars! ... won't be doing that again].

Anyway, so I killed a few hundred mozzies and then was troubled by a particularly nasty looking one (I think he was the father or best mate of all the others I'd just blammied). I eventually flattened him on my jeans ... he was full of blood (not mine!) and I now have a stain the size of a penny piece on my leg. Relaying this story to the kids, I had to explain what a 'penny' was! Maybe we've spent too much time in Asia.

This mozzie killing frenzy made my mind wander to: "who's blood was that anyway?" and "I wonder how the dengue fever is in India". I thought about the latter because I'm hearing terrible stories coming out of Singapore. I know of three expats who've been recently laid low by dengue fever there. One guy was bedded for nearly four weeks. Nicknamed the "break-bone fever or bonecrusher disease" because of the severe pain it brings, dengue can fall on anyone - no matter how fit you are. Worse still, it kills indiscriminately.

++++++

Next day.

I wrote the above text in a Gurgaon bar whilst waiting for an Indian colleague to arrive. I was writing it on my new toy - a Blackberry Bold (s'cool). Naturally he wanted to see the toy and see what I was writing. I explained I was writing something on Gurgaon and Dengue - I explained about the car episode and the fact I was buzzed by the pesky things waiting for him by the pool that evening. Aha! He explained -- did I know that Gurgaon was getting the unenviable reputation as the "Dengue capital of India".

From the Indian Times:

Gurgaon is now reeling under a massive dengue outbreak. With 28 blood samples testing positive on Wednesday, Gurgaon's dengue count has risen to 348 cases, with two deaths.

Alarmingly, as many as 263 cases have been reported from Gurgaon's urban areas and posh colonies. Inspections carried out by officials from the National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases reported the breeding rate of Aedes mosquito (that carries the dengue virus) was alarmingly high in Gurgaon - sometimes 40% of the houses inspected were found to be breeding sites.

According to NVBDCP records, Gurgaon had reported 297 cases till August 31 this year, as against 36 cases till August 2007 - an increase of nearly 800%. Delhi till now has recorded 92 positive dengue cases.

If Gurgaon's reputation as an upmarket destination and a shining symbol of the new economy was already being tarred by civic woes - and the perpetual hassles of expressway commuters - the dengue situation may well be the last straw for many residents.

Yikes! All news to me. On my next visit, I'm bringing a mozzie net and buckets of "mozzie off!". I do like the sound of this however: "National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme" - I imagine their business cards are A4 sized.

M