This year's dengue toll stands at 17 as against last year's three

NEW DELHI: Only three people had died of dengue in Delhi last year as against 17 this year, according to health data released today.

On a countrywide basis, the data showed that 40,425 dengue cases were registered in 2014.

As many as 27,668 dengue cases have been registered till September 20 this year, according to a different set of data of the Union Health Ministry.

According to National Health Profile-2015, published by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) and released by Union Health Minister J P Nadda today, in Delhi, 995 cases were reported in 2014 while three persons had died.

However, if one compares it to the latest figures released by Delhi Government, a total of 3,791 people have been affected by the disease till September 19 while 17 of them have died.

Based on available record, officials have said that the situation in the current year till September is the worst in the past six years.

The National Health Profile (NHP) shows that in 2014, 40,425 cases were report in which 131 had died across India. However, as per Health Ministry data, in 2015 till September 20, already 27,668 cases have been registered and 60 people have died.

This year, the highest number of deaths have been reported in Kerala with 19 where the number of dengue cases registered has exceeded 3,000.

Coming back to NHP data released today, in 2013, the number of dengue cases reported across the country was 74,168 while 168 had died from it. In 2012, around 242 people across India had died of the disease.

The report said that non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and others are on the rise due to urbanisation and change in lifestyles.

However, communicable diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, kala-azar, dengue, chikungunya and other vector-borne diseases continue to be a "major" public health problem in India, the report said.

Elaborating on malaria, the report said that the cases were brought down from 2,031,790 cases in 2000 to 1,816,569 cases in 2005 and further brought down to 1,067,824 cases in 2012.

The report said that the malaria death rate in the country was 0.09 deaths per one lakh population in 2000 which has come down to 0.04 deaths per one lakh population in 2012.